Getting acquainted with the trees

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ONTARIO AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
LIBRARY.

eet oe ECT Wo) os 1905...

Getting Acquainted
with the Crees

= 1.2 ss

Setting Acquainted
with the Crees

BY

J. HORACE McFARLAND

Illustrated from Photographs
by the Author

NEW YORK
THE OUTLOOK COMPANY
1904

Copyright, 1904
By The Outlook Company

Published April, 1904

Wount Pleasant {Press
J. Horace McFarland Company
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Foreword

HESE sketches are, I fear, very unscien-
tific and unsystematies, They record the

: growth of, my own interest and informa-
tion, as I have ‘recently observed and enjoyed
the trees among which I had walked unsee-
ing far too/many years. To pass on, as well
asp cafy»some of the benefit that ve come
into my own life from this\.wakened interest
i. the trees provided by the Creator for the
ae
vesting of tired brains and the healing of ruf-
fled spirits, as well as for utility, is the reason
for gathering together and.. somewhat ,extend-
ing the papers that have, brought me, / as they
have appeared in the pages. of. “The, ‘Outlook, “
so many letters of fellowship and. apprecia-
tion from others who have often. seen more
clearly and deeply into the woods. than I may
hope to.

Driven out from my desk by weariness some-
times—and as often, I confess, by a rasped tem-

(v)

FOREWORD

per I would fain hide from display—I have
never failed to find rest, and peace, and much
to see and to love, among the common and
familiar trees, to which I hope these mere
hints of some of their features not always seen
may send others who also need their silent
and beneficent message.

J. H. Mee:
March 17, 1904

(vi)

Contents

RY OF SoME MapLes

TP-OF THE OAK

-
as

PAGE

\

-

List. of Pllustrations

_

“American elm in winter (tint) . . =. — Front cover
European™beech (tint). . ©. . . Title-page
Cluster of Japanese™persimmons (tint) . . Foreword
Old White Pines. (tint) 3 2 : . Contents page
Flowers of American~elm (tint) 2 Opis pager

~ Leaves and samaras of Norway maple (tint)

‘Leaves and samaras of. silver maple (tint)

F oC “Silver maple flowers

aes

\

- Young leaves of the red maple s
“The Norway maple breaks into a Sra H Ll Hapia?

Samaras of the.sugar maple

Amature syeamore maple
Sycamore maple blossoms

“Flowers of the ash-leaved maple

Ash-leaved maples in bloom

Striped maple :
Flowers of the chestnut bak (tint) .
Leaves and acorns of the pin-oak (tint)
The swamp white oak in winter
Flowers of the pin-oak

The swamp white oak in early spring .
An old post-oak ‘ ;
A blooming twig of the swamp Bai oak .
Acorns of the English oak

Cones of the Norway spruce (tint)
Cones of the pitch pine (tint) .

(1x)

PAGE

LIST Of TLLCS?T RATIOS

PAGE
A lone pine on the Indian river, = \icc> 2) 9)
Hemlock Hill, Arnold Arboretum .. »» ae
Fountain-like effect of the young long- ened pines :| oe
The long-leaved pines of the South . . |. °. See
An avenue of white pines + jp ih aka oe oy)
Cones of the white spruce ; .- ¢ =)
Fruit-cluster of the crab-apple faa) - «ott a
Cluster of Winesap apples (tint) - ) «lw
An apple orchard in winter . .° . . . 3
When the apple trees blossom + « |
The Spectabilis crab in bloom - 2.) 5)!
Fruits of the wild crab... St ae
The beauty of a fruiting apple beach, : . oy
Bloom of double-flowering apple . . .. . «a
Flowers of -Carolina poplar (tint): . . + 4s) =aeueen
Pussy-willows: (tint) / <3 . so. 4%) 9
A weeping willow in early spring . .. . i Aa
The weeping willow in a storm . . ; |. =e
A pussy-willow in a park are
Blooms of the white willow . . . . . .« 3G@8;eng0
A white willow in a characteristic position . 3°
Clump of young white willows -. » «a ne
White poplars in spring-time . 2 Nod is .
Carolina poplar as a street tree , : ; F ; . aes
Winter aspect of the cottonwood . : , : ; ..- 126
Lombardy poplar .. : 2 ) 1) ee
Leaves and seed-pods of the limmees lin (tint) . ; +s,
Tulip flowers (tint) -.. .« «> » .; = eee
A mature American elm ... . “ae
The delicate tracery of the Pieters ae in wiflter .. <eg@
The English elm in winter . 2 a a
Winter effect of tulip trees .. . :. J) Sn
A great liriodendron in bloom . . . . 93)

(x)

Mart Be TEEOSTRA TIONS

PAGE
Howers ot.the lirtodendran <7 2) ). 2 se ee 153
Restne Mrs (tne) vate ir eM a ong
Pecan nuts (tint) . Salicpome yt eaten, CWE EO
The wide-spreading black walaat Oe Br ag ore ee GO
The American sweet chestnut.in winter . . . . 165
Sweet chestnut blooms Pte Oe a ts 8, Mtn Ny Gr
The chinquapin . Pee Sat 7, Ue oe SEG
A shag-bark hickory in Blehial ~ ye gM RUIN
Sie crue mut-eater. «ee a ee ae 298
The American beech in winter te! Tein re os LOO
SReoritel= nace). at ee at OE eB
atkins of the sweet birch (tint) . . . . ; 207085
memes ot, the dopwood (tnt) 0 280 Me 8 roe
Sweet birch in spring Be PASE Mae POST ao ela” Stet
Semen eES ct es tee eee To oe ey > ge
Flowers of the spice-bush hats, Bore te hea!
Leaves and berries of the American holly BN ively | NL 2k
Mmerican holly tree at? Prenton + -. 9. . .' «| 196
Mimers.or che degwoou .) 6 Se ol i a Teg
The red-bud in bloom i PRA Guba et camer leek a
Blooms of the shad-bush ae rere palate) Pe 200
Miewers of the JAmeérican linden =~ : 3 =. . ©. °207
Mpcleimenican linden. “i; 92. or 7 2 My ar 2). [269
Pierwers of, the black: lopust, Ss. 97.5 82> fF) 8s. be aT
Seeune trees of the black locwst "205 3 212
Sneosveainore, or butten=balliy— 0-2.) oe. 2 Bs
Button-balls—fruit of the sycamore Ak ob, A ok aie Cem I
The liquidambar .. Sag oles! Wi Aiey £265
The leaves and fruit of me anderen ; : i p32,
Milieapapaw finoloony =. rs sso et a oe = 26
Flowers of the papaw need vas ees Bh cab BB Be 0 Uy
Pbiie persimmon treesin fruiting time ,. .- . - «. 231
enricscotitnc spice-busit ..)' 4 ~£) “sefoer esl 4 ae B34

(x1)

-

%

g

j

A Story of Some

> f Maples

NHIS is not a botanical disquisition ; it is not
a complete/account of all the. members of
the important tree familysof maples. I am
not a“botanist, nor a true scientific observer, but
only aeplain tree-lover, and I have been watch-

ing’ some “trees~bloom and bud and grow and

‘fruit for a few/years, using a camera now and

then, to record what I\see—and much more

‘than I see, usually!

; “\ In the sweet springtime, when the rising of

if

f

the sap incites some to poetry, some to making

maple sugar, and some to watching for the first
flowers, it is well to look at a few tree- blooms,
and to consider the possibilities and the pleas-
ures of a peaceful hunt that can be made
with profit in city street or park, as well as
along country roadsides and in the meadows
and the woods.

Who does not know of the maples that are

3

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

all around us? Yet who has seen the common-

est of them bloom in very early spring, or
watched the course of the peculiar winged seed-

“=
~ Kapa
"\% .
Po

Silver maple flowers

“we

pods or “keys” that follow the
flowers? The white or “silver”
maple of streets or roadsides,
the soft maple of the woods, is
one of the most familiar of
American trees. Its rapid and
vigorous growth endears it to
the man who is in a hurry for
shade, and its sturdy limbs are
the joy of the tree-butcher who
“trims” them short im) Sieger
years.

Watch this maple in very
early spring—even before spring
is any more than a calem@ar
probability—and a singular
bloom will be found along the
slender twigs. Lake little loose-

haired brushes these flowers are, coming often

bravely in sleet and snow, and seemingly able

to “set” and fertilize regardless of the weather.

They hurry through the bloom-time, as they

4

h

ZoshOny OF SOME MAPLES

must do to carry out the life-round, for the
graceful two-winged seeds that follow them are
picked up and whirled about by April winds,
and, if they lodge in the warming earth, are
fully able to grow into fine little trees the
same season. Examine these seed-pods, keys, or
samaras (this last is a scientific name with such
euphony to it that it might well become com-
mon!), and notice the delicate veining in the
translucent wings. See the graceful lines of the
whole thing, and realize what an abundant pro-
vision Dame Nature makes for reproduction,— for
a moderate-sized tree completes many thousands
of these finely formed, greenish yellow, winged
samaras, and casts them loose for the wind to
distribute during enough days to secure the
best chances of the season.

This same silver maple is a bone of contention
among tree-men, at times. Some will tell you it
is) “coarse”; and so it is when planted in an
improper place upon a narrow street, allowed to
flourish unrestrained for years, and then ruthlessly
cropped off toa headless trunk! But set it on a
broad lawn, or upon a roadside with generous
room, and its noble stature and grace need yield

5

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

nothing to the most artistic elm of New Eng-
land. And in the deep woods it sometimes
reaches a majesty and a dignity that compel ad-
miration. The great maple at Eagles Mere is
the king of the bit of primeval forest yet re-
maining to that mountain rest spot. It towers
high over mature hemlocks and beeches, and
seems well able to defy future centuries.

But there is another very early maple to watch
for, and it is one widely distributed in the East-
ern States. The red or scarlet maple is well
named, for its flowers, not any more conspicu-
ous in form than those of its close relation, the
silver maple, are usually bright red or yellow,
and they give a joyous color note in the very be-
ginning of spring’s overture. Not long are these
flowers with us; they fade, only to be quickly
succeeded by even more brilliant samaras, a little
more delicate and refined than those of the silver
maple, as well as of the richest and warmest hue.
Particularly in New England does this maple
provide a notable spring color showing.

The leaves of the red maple—it is also the
swamp maple of some localities—as they open
to the coaxing of April sun and April showers,

6

Young leaves of the red maple

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

have a special charm. They are properly red,
but mingled with the characteristic color is a
whole palette of tints of soft yellow, bronze and
apricot. As the little baby leaflets open, they
are shiny and crinkly, and altogether attractive.
One thinks of the more aristocratic and dwarfed
Japanese maples, in looking at the opening of
these red-brown beauties, and it is no pleasure
to see them smooth out into sedate greenness.
Again, in fall, a glory of color comes to the
leaves of the red maple; for they illumine the
countryside with their scarlet hue, and, as they
drop, form a brilliant thread in the most beau-
tiful of all carpets—that of the autumn leaves.
I think no walk in the really happy days of
the fall maturity of growing things is quite so
pleasant as that which leads one to shuffle
through this deep forest floor covering of ori-
ental richness of hue.

As the ground warms and the sun searches
into the hearts of the buds, the Norway maple,
familiar street tree of Eastern cities, breaks into
a wonderful bloom. Very deceptive it is, and
taken for the opening foliage by the casual ob-
server; yet there is, when these flowers first

8

wWseTtORY OF SOME MAPLES

open, no hint of leaf on the tree, save that of
the swelling bud. All that soft haze of greenish
yellow is bloom, and bloom of the utmost beauty.
The charm lies not in boldness of color or of
contrast, but at the other extreme —in the deli-
cacy of differing tints, in the variety of subtle
shades and tones. There are charms of form
and of fragrance, too, in this Norway maple —
the flowers are many-rayed stars, and they emit
a faint, spicy odor, noticeable only when several
trees are together in bloom. And these flowers
last long, comparatively; so long that the green-

“The Norway maple breaks into a wonderful bloom”

9

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

ish yellow of the young leaves begins to combine
with them before they fall. The tints of flower
and of leaf melt insensibly into each other, so
that, as I have remarked before, the casual ob-
server says, “The leaves are out on the Norway
maples,”—not knowing of the great mass of
delightful flowers that have preceded the leaves
above his unseeing eyes. I emphasize this, for I
hope some of my readers may be on the outlook
for a new pleasure in early spring—the bloom-
ing of this maple, with flowers so thoroughly
distinct and so entirely beautiful.

The samaras to follow on this Norway maple
are smaller than those of the other two maples
mentioned, and they hang together at a different
angle, somewhat more graceful. I have often
wondered how the designers, who work to death
the pansies, the roses and the violets, have man-
aged to miss a form or “motive” of such value,
suggesting at once the near-by street and far-
away Egypt.

A purely American species, and one of as
much economic importance as any leaf-dropping
tree, is the sugar maple, known also as rock
maple—one designation because we can get

10

Samaras of the sugar maple

sweetness from its sap, the other because of the
hardness of its wood. ‘The sugar maples of
New England, to me, are more individual and
almost more essentially beautiful than the famed
elms. No saccharine life-blood is drawn from
rae elm; therefore its:elegance is considered.
I notice that we seldom think much of beauty
when it attaches to something we can eat! Who
fedlizes that the commen ‘corn, the American
maize, is a stately and elegant plant, far more
beautiful than many a pampered pet of the green-

He

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

house? But this is not a corn story—I shall
hope to be heard on the neglected beauty of
many common things, some day — and we can for
the time overlook the syrup of the sugar maple
for its delicate blossoms, coming long after the
red and the silver are done with their flowers.
These sugar-maple blooms hang on slender
stems; they come with the first leaves, and are
very different in appearance from the flowers of
other maples. The observer will have no
trouble in recognizing them after the first
successful attempt, even though he may be
baffled in comparing the maple leaves by the
apparent similarity of the foliage of the Nor-
way, the sugar and the sycamore maples at
certain stages of growth.

After all, it is the autumn time that brings
this maple most strongly before us, for it
flaunts its banners of scarlet and yellow in the
woods, along the roads, with an insouciant swing
of its own. The sugar possibility as forgotten,
and it is a pure autumn pleasure to appreciate
the richness of color, to be soon followed by
the more sober cognizance of the elegance of
outline and form disclosed when all the deli-

12

ae

Ny,

A mature sycamore maple

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

cate tracery of twig and bough stands revealed
against winter’s frosty sky. The sugar maple
has a curious habit of ripening or reddening
some of its branches very early, as if it was
hanging out a warning signal to the squirrels
and the chipmunks to hurry along with their
storing of nuts against the winter’s need. I re-
member being puzzled one August morning as
I drove along one of Delaware’s flat, flat roads,
to know what could possibly have produced
the brilliant, blazing scarlet banner that hung
across a distant wood as if a dozen red flags
were being there displayed. Closer approach
disclosed one rakish branch on a sugar maple,
all afire with color, while every other leaf on
the tree yet held the green of summer.

Again in the mountains, one late summer,
half a lusty sugar maple set up a conflagration
which, I was informed, presaged its early
death. But the next summer it grew as freely
as ever, and retained its sober green until the
cool days and nights; just as if the ebullition
of the season previous was but a breaking out
of extra color life, rather than a suggeditiom
of weakness or death.

14

Sycamore maple blossoms

The Norway maple is botanically dcer plata-
noides, really meaning plane-like maple, from the
similarity of its leaves to those of the European
plane. The sycamore maple is Acer Pseudo-plat-
‘anus, which, being translated, means that old
Linneus thought it a sort of false plane-like
maple. Both are European species, but both are
far more familiar, as street and lawn trees, to us
dwellers in cities than are many of our purely
American species. There is a little difference in
the bark of the two, and the leaves of the syca-
more, while almost identical in form, are darker

lee)

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

and thicker than those of the Norway, and they
are whitish underneath, instead of light green.
The habit of the two is twin-like; they can
scarcely be distinguished when the leaves are
off. But the flowers are totally different, and
one would hardly believe them to be akin, judg-
ing only by appearances. The young leaves of
the sycamore maple are lush and vigorous when
the long, grape-like flower-clusters appear below
the twigs. “Racemes” they are, botanically—
and that is another truly good scientific word—
while the beautiful Norway maple’s flowers
must stand the angular designation of “cor-
ymbs.” But don’t miss looking for the syca-
more maple’s long, pendulous racemes. They
seem more grape-like than grape blossoms; and
they stay long, apparently, the transition from
flower to fruit being very gradual. I mind me
of a sycamore I pass every winter day, with
its dead fruit-clusters, a reminiscence of the
flower-racemes, swinging in the frosty breeze,
waiting until the spring push of the life within
the twigs shoves them off.

To be ready to recognize this maple at the
right time, it is well to observe and mark the

16

A STORY OF SOME MAPLES

difference between it and the Norway in the
summer time, noting the leaves and the bark
as suggested above.

Another maple that is different is one vari-
ously known as box-elder, ash-leaved maple, or
negundo. Of rapid growth, it makes a lusty,
irregular tree. Its green-barked, withe-like
limbs seem willing to grow in any direction—
down, up, sidewise—and the result is a pecu-
liar formlessness that has its own merit. I
think of a fringe of box-elders along Paxton
Creek, decked in early spring with true maple

Flowers of the ash-leaved maple

|

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREee

flowers on thread-like stems, each cluster sur-
mounted by soft green foliage apparently bor-
rowed from the ash, and it seems that no other
tree could fit better into the place or the sea-
son. Then I remember another, a single stately
tree that has had a great field all to itself, and
stands up in superb dignity, dominating even
the group of pin-oaks nearest to it. Twas
the surprising mist of bloom on this tree that
took me up the field on a run, one spring
day, when the running was sweet in the
air, but sticky underfoot. The color effect of
the flowers is most delicate, and almost inde-
scribable in ordinary chromatic terms. Don’t
miss the acquaintance of the ash-leaved maple
at its flowering time, in the very flush of the
springtime, my tree-loving friends !
I have not found a noticeable fragrance in
the flowers of the box-elder, such as is very
apparent where there is a group of Norway
maples in bloom together. The .red maples
also give to the air a faint and delightfully
spicy odor, under favorable conditions. May
I hint that the lusty box-elder, when it is
booming along its spring growth, furnishes
18

>> "Wen"

in bloom

The ash-leaved maples

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

a loose-barked whistle stick about as good as
those that come from the willow? The gen-
erous growth that provides its loosening sap
can also spare a few twigs for the boys, and
they will be all the better for a melodious
reason for the spring ramble.

The striped maple of Pennsylvania, a com-
paratively rare and entirely curious small tree
or large shrub, is not well known, though
growing freely as “elkwood” and “moose-
wood” in the Alleghanies, because it is rather
hard to transplant, and thus offers no induce-
ments to the nurserymen. ‘These good people,
like the rest of us, move along the lines of
least resistance, wherefore many a fine tree or
fruit is rare to us, because shy or difficult of
growth, or perhaps unsymmetrical. The fine
Rhode Island Greening apple is unpopular
because the young tree is crooked, while the
leather-skinned and punk- fleshed Ben Davis
is a model of symmetry and rapidity of growth.
Our glorious tulip tree of the woods, because
of its relative difficulty in transplanting, has had
to be insisted upon from the nurserymen by
those who know its superb beauty. For the

20

AWTORY OF SOME MAPLES

same reason this small charming maple, with
the large, soft, comfortable leaves upon which
the deer love to browse, is kept from showing

its delicate June bloom and its remarkable
~ fs ey striped bark in our home
_ grounds. I hope
yp. some maple friends
will look for it, and,
finding, admire this,
the aristocrat among
our native species.
The mountain maple
—the nurserymen call
it Acer spicatum—is an-
other native of rather
dwarf growth. It is
bushy, and not remark-
able: in leaf, ats claim
for distinction being in
its flowers and samaras,
which are held saucily up,
above the branches on
which they grow, rather
than drooping modestly,
as other maples gracefully

Striped maple

PM

=

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

bear their bloom and fruit. These shiny seeds
or keys are brightly scarlet, as well, and thus very
attractive in color. There is a reason for this,
in nature’s economy; for while the loosely hung
samaras of the other maples are distributed by
the breezes, the red pods of this mountain maple
hold stifHy upward to attract the birds upon
whom it largely depends for that sowing which
must precede its reproduction.

Of the other maples of America—a score of
them there are—I might write pages, to weari-
ness. The black maple of the Eastern woods,
the large-leaved maples of the West, these
and many more are in this great family, to
say nothing of the many interesting cultivated
forms and variations introduced from European
nurseries, and most serviceable in formal orna-
mental planting. But I have told of those I
know best and those that any reader can know
as well in one season, if he looks for them with
the necessary tree love which is but a fine form
of true love of God’s creation. This love, once
implanted, means surer protection for the trees,
otherwise so defenseless against the unthinking
vandalism of commercialism or incompetence —

Pap)

“a STORY OF SOME MAPLES

a vandalism that has not only devastated our
American forests, but mutilated shamefully many
trees of priceless value in and about our cities.

Of the Japanese maples—their leaves seem-
ingly a showing of the ingenuity of these Yankees
of the Orient, in their twists of form and depths
of odd color—lI could tell a tale, but it would
be of the tree nursery and not of the broad out-
doors. Let us close the book and go afield, in
park or meadow, on street or lawn, and look to
the maples for an unsuspected feast of bloom,
if it be spring, or for richness of foliage in sum-
mer and autumn; and in coldest winter let us
notice the delicate twigs and yet sturdy structure
of this tree family that is most of all character-
istic of the home, in city or country.

23

The Growth of
the Dak

The Growth of the Dak

TT HE old saw has it, “Great oaks from
little acorns grow,” and all of us who
_remer ber the Saying? have thus some
of what beginning of an oak is. But

id ca
, of the eginning @F the acorn? In a
eral Way se “one inferentially ~supposes that
there ust/ be amflower somewhere.in the life-
or of _theg towering white oak that has
defied Ahe "storm
type of aenine sturdy and strong and mas-

sof centuries and seems a

eiline ; but what sort of a flower could one
pine as the source of so much majesty?
We know of the great magnolias, with blooms
befitting the richness of the foliage that follows
pacm. We sec, and some of us admire, the
exquisitely delicate blossoms of that splendid
American tree, the tulip or whitewood. We
inhale with delight the fragrance that makes
notable the time when the common _ locust
sends forth its white racemes of loveliness.

=i

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREE

But we miss, many of us, the flowering of
the oaks in early spring, and we do not rea-
lize that this family of trees, most notable for
rugged strength, has its bloom of beginning
at the other end of the scale, in flowers of
delicate coloring and rather diminutive size.

The reason I missed appreciating the flow-
ers of the oak—they are quite new to me—
for some years of tree admiration was because
of the distracting accompaniment the tree gives
to the blooms. Some trees—most of the ma-
ples, for instance —send out their flowers boldly
ahead of the foliage, and it is thus easy to
see what is happening above your head, as you
stroll along drinking in the spring’s nectar of
spicy air. Others, again, have such showy
blooms that the mass of foliage only accentu-
ates their attractiveness, and it is not possible
to miss them.

But the oak is different; it 1s as modest
as it is strong, and its bloom is nearly sur-
rounded by the opening leaves in most seasons
and in most of the species I am just begin-
ing to be acquainted with. Then, too, these
opening leaves are of such indescribable colors

28

w 27
Be OS

7; sa
PNK

The swamp white oak in winter

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

—if the delicate chromatic tints they reflect
to the eye may be so strongly named —that
they harmonize, and do not contrast, with the
flowers. It is with them almost as with a
fearless chipmunk whose acquaintance I culti-
vated one summer—he was gay with stripes of
soft color, yet he so fitted any surroundings
he chose to be in that when he was quiet he
simply disappeared! The oak’s flowers and its
exquisite unfolding of young foliage combine
in one effect, and it is an effect so beautiful
that one easily fails to separate its parts, or to
see which of the mass of soft pink, gray,
yellow and green is bloom and which of
it is leafage.

Take the pin-oak, for instance, and note
the softness of the greenery above its flowers.
Hardly can we define the young leaves as
green—they are all tints, and all beautiful.
This same pin-oak, by the way (I mean the
one the botanists call Quercus palustris), is a
notable contradiction of the accepted theory
that an oak of size and dignity cannot be
reared -in a lifetime. , There are hundredsiigs
lusty pin-oaks all over the Eastern States that

30

Flowers of the pin-oak

are shading the homes of the wise men who
planted them in youth, and they might well
adorn our parks and avenues in place of many
far less beautiful and permanent trees. With
ordinary care, and in good soil, the pin-oak
grows rapidly, and the characteristic spreading
habit and the slightly down-drooping branches
are always attractive. In its age it has not
the ruggedness of its kin, though it assumes
a stately and somewhat formal habit, and, I

31

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE -TREES

must confess, accumulates some ragged dead
branches in its interior.

This raggedness is easily cared for, for the
tree requires—and few trees do—no “trim-
ming” of its outer branches. The interior
twigs that the rapid growth of the tree has
deprived of air and light can be quickly and
easily removed. In Washington, where street-
tree planting has been and is_ intelligently
managed under central authority, the avenues
of pin-oaks are a splendid feature of the great
boulevards which are serving already as a model
to the whole country. Let us plant oaks, and
relieve the monotony of too many maples, pop-
lars and horse-chestnuts along our city and
village highways.

I like, too, to see the smooth little acorns
of the pin-oak before the leaves drop; they
seem so finished and altogether pleasing, and
with the leaves make a classical decorative
motive worth more attention from designers.

While I am innocent of either ability or
intent to write botanically of the great oak
family, I ought perhaps to transcribe the
information that the flowers we see—if we

32

THETGROW TH OF THE OAK

look just at the right time in the spring —are
known as “staminate catkins,’— which, being
interpreted, means that there are also pistillate
flowers, much less conspicuous, but exceedingly
necessary if acorns are to result; and also the
fact that the familiar “pussy-willow” of our
acquaintance is the same form of bloom —the
e2tcin, or ament. I. ought to.say, too, that
some of the oaks perfect acorns from blossoms
in one year, while others must grow through
two seasons before they are mature. Botanically,
the oak family is nearly a world family, and
we Americans, though possessed of many spe-
tices, have no monopoly of it. Indeed, if I
iy, Gate to refer the reader .to that great
storehouse of words, the Encyclopedia Britan-
mca, I think he will find that the - oak is
there very British, and that the English oak,
surely a magnificent tree in England anyway,
is patriotically glorified to the writer.

But we want to talk of some of our own
oaks. The one thoroughly characteristic is
surely the noble white oak, a tree most admi-
rable in every way, and most widely distributed
over the Northern States. Its majestic form,

33

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE, TREES

as it towers high above the ordinary works of
man, conveys the repose of conscious strength
to the beholder. -There is a great “oak
Connecticut to which I make pilgrimages, and
from which I always get a message of rest
and peace. There it stands, strong, full-pow-
ered, minding little the most furious storms,
a benediction to every one who will but lift
his eyes. There it has stood in full majese
for years unknown, for it was a great oak, so
run the title-deeds, way back in 1636, when
first the white man began to own land in the
Connecticut Valley. At first sight it seems not
large, for its perfect symmetry conceals its
great size; but its impression grows as one
looks at it, until it seems to fill the whole land-
scape. I have sat under it in spring, when yet
its leafy canopy was incomplete; I have looked
into its green depths in midsummer, when its
grateful shadow refreshed the highway; I have
seen the sun set in redness beyond its bare
limbs, the snowy countryside emphasizing its
noble lines; I have tried to fathom the mystery
in its sturdy heart overhead when the full
moon rode in the sky; and always that “great

34

PE NGROY TH OF THE OAK

oak of Glastonbury” has soothed and cheered
and rested, and taken me nearer the Giver of
all such good to restless humanity.

Do I wonder at my friend who has built
his home where he may look always at this
white oak, or that he raged in anger when a
crabbed neighbor. ruthlessly cut down a superb
tree of the same kind that was on his ptop-
eer line, in order that he might tun his
barbed-wire fence straight? No; I agree with
him that this tree-murderer has probably a
Barpeed-wire heart,’ and we expect that his
future existence will be treeless, at least!

Sometimes this same white oak adapts itself
fo the bank of a stream, though its true
character develops best in the drier ground.
Its strength has been its bane, for the value
of its timber has caused many a great isolated
specimen to be cut down. It is fine to know
that some States— Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and Rhode Island also, I think—have given
to trees along highways, and in situations where
iaey sare part of the highway landscape, the
protection of a wise law. Under this law each
town appoints a tree-warden, serving without

35

The swamp white oak in early spring

PHA IGROW TH OF THE OAK

pay (and therefore with love), who may seal to
the town by his label such trees as are truly
the common possession, regardless of whose land
they happen to be on. If the owner desires
to cut down a tree thus designated, he must
first obtain permission, after stating satisfactory
reasons, of the annual town-meeting, and _ this
is not so easy as to make cutting very fre-
quent. The whole country should have such a
law, and I should enjoy its application right
here in Pennsylvania, where oaks of a hundred
years have been cut down to make room for
a whisky sign, and where a superb pin-oak
that I passed today is devoted to an igno-
minious use. If I may venture to become
hortatory, let me say that the responsibility for
the preservation of the all-too-few remaining
great primeval trees, and of their often notable
progeny, in our Eastern States, rests with
those who care for trees, not alone with those
who ought to care. To talk about the great-
ness and beauty of a fine oak or maple or
tulip, to call attention to its shade value, and
to appeal to the cupidity of the ground owner
by estimating how much less his property will

37

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE, TREES

be worth when the trees are gone or have been
mishandled, will aid to create the necessary
public sentiment. And to provide wise laws, as
may be often done with proper attention, is
the plain duty and the high privilege of the
tree-loving citizen. The trees are defenseless, —
and they are often unreplaceable; if you love
them protect them as you would your children.

The white-oak leaf is the most familiar and
characteristic, perhaps, of the family; but other
species, close to the white oak in habit, show
foliage of a very different appearance. The
swamp white oak, for instance, is a noble tree,
and in winter particularly its irregular branches
give it an especial expression of rugged strength
as it grows along a brookside; but its leaves
smooth up on the edges, giving only a hint
of the deep serrations that typify its upland
brother. Deeply green above are these leaves
and softly white below, and in late summer
there. appears, here and there, ..on /aepscoee
stem, a most attractive acorn of large vysige:
Its curious cup gives a hint, or more than a
hint, as to the special designating character of
another oak, the mossy-cup or bur. This lat-

38

An old post-oak

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

ter species is beautiful in its habit, rich in its
foliage, and the fringed or mossed acorns are
of a remarkable size.

Of all the oaks, the sturdy but not lofty
post-oak spreads the richest display of foliage.
Its peculiar habit leads to the even placing
of its violoncello-shaped leaves, and its generous
crop of acorns gives added distinction in late
summer. It is fine. in. the forest) amigge
notable ornament anywhere.

It has been said that a proper penance for
an offending botanist would be a compulsory
separation and description of the involved and
complicated goldenrod family; and I would
suggest that a second edition of the same
penance might be a requirement to name off-
hand the first dozen oak trees the same poor
botanist might meet. So much do the foliage,
the bark, and the habit of growth vary, and so
considerable is the difference between individ-
uals of the same species, that the wisest expert
is likely to be the most conservative. An
unbotanical observer, who comes at the family
just because ‘he loves trees in general, and is
poking his eyes and his camera into unusual

40

THE GROWTH OF THE OAK

places, doesn’t make close determinations; he
tells what he thinks he sees, and leaves exact
work to the scientists.

There are some oaks, however, that have
borrowed the foliage of other trees so cunningly
that one at first scouts the possibility of the
Quercus parentage, until he sees an undeniable
acorn thrusting itself forward. ‘Then he is sure
that what seemed a rather peculiarly shaped
chestnut tree, with somewhat stumpy foliage, is

A blooming twig of the swamp white oak

4l

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

none other than the chestnut-oak. A fine tree
it is, too, this same chestnut-oak, with its mas-
querading foliage of deep green, its upright and
substantial habit, its rather long and aristocratic-
looking acorns. The authorities tell that its
wood, too, is brownish and valuable; but we
tree-lovers are not enthusiastic over mere tim-
ber values, because that means the killing of
the:-trees. .

The willow-oak will not deceive, because its
habit is so oak-like and so willow-less; but its
foliage is surely borrowed from its graceful and
more rapidly growing neighbor. Not so large,
by any means, as the white oak or the chestnut-
oak, it has somewhat rough and reddish bark,
and its acorns are perfected in the second year
of their growth, close to the twigs, in the way
of the pin-oak. The general aspect of the tree
is upright, rather than spreading, and it par-
takes thus of the maple character in its land-
scape effect. The willow-oak is one of the
species I would, if I were writing a tree-plant-
ing article, heartily commend to those who
wish to add adornment to the countryside that
shall be permanent and satisfactory. Just a hint

42

THES GROWTH OF THE OAK

here: nursery-grown oaks, now obtainable from
any modern establishment, have usually been
frequently moved or transplanted, as the trade
term goes, and this means that they have
established a somewhat self-contained root sys-
tem, which will give them far greater vigor
and cause them to take hold sooner when
finally placed in a situation where they are to
Bes permanent features. The reason is plain:
the forest seedling, in the fierce struggle for
existence usually prevailing, must send its roots
far and wide for food, and when it is dug out
their feeding capacity is so seriously curtailed as
to check the growth of the tree for many years.
The nursery-grown tree, on the contrary, has
been brought up “by hand,” and its food has
always been convenient to it, leading to more
rapid growth and a more compact root system.
I only interject this prosaic fact here in the
hope that some of my tree-loving readers will
undertake to plant some oaks instead of only
the soft-wooded and less permanent maples,
poplars, and the like.

Another simulative leaf is that of the laurel-
oak, and it is color and gloss as well as shape

25.

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

that have been borrowed from its humbler
neighbor in the forest. The shining green of
the laurel is seen in these oak leaves; they are
also half evergreen, thus being one of the
family particularly belonging to our Southern
States, and hardly enduring the chill of the
winters north of Virginia. It is one of the
galaxy of oaks I remember as providing a
special interest in the Georgia forests, where
the long-leaved pine also gave a new tree
sensation to the visitor from the North, who
at first could hardly imagine what those lovely
little green fountains of foliage were that he
saw along the roadside and in the woods. The
Georgia oaks seem to me to have a richness
of foliage, a color and substance and shine,
that compare only with the excellence of two
other products of the same State—the peach
and the watermelon. The long summer and
the plenitude of sunshine seem to weave into
these products luxuriance found nowhere else;
and when one sees for the first time a happy,
rollicking bunch of round-eyed negro children,
innocent alike of much clothing or any trouble,
mixing up with the juicy Georgia melon under

44

THE GROWTH OF THE OAK

the shade of a luxuriant oak, he gets a new
conception of at least one part of the race
problem!

One of the things I wanted much to see
when I first traveled South was the famed live-
oak, the majesty and the mournfulness of
which had been long sung into me. Perhaps
I expected too much, as I did of the palmetto,
another part of my quest, but surely there was
‘disappointment when I was led, on the banks
of the Manatee River in Florida, to see a
famous live-oak. It was tall and grand, but
its adornment of long, trailing gray Spanish
moss, which was to have attached the sadness
to it, seemed merely to make it unkempt and
uncomfortable. I was instantly reminded of a
tree at home in the far North that I had never
thought particularly beautiful, but which now,
by comparison, took on an attractiveness it has
never since lost. Imagine a great spreading
weeping willow turned dingy gray, and you
have a fair picture of a moss-covered live-oak ;
but you will prefer it green, as is the willow,
I believe.

One day a walk about Savannah, which city

45

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

has many splendid live-oaks in its parks and
squares, involved me in a sudden shower, when,
presto! the weeping willow of the North was
reincarnated before my eyes, for the falling rain
turned the dingy moss pendants of the live-
oak to the whitish green that makes the willow
such a delightful color-note in early spring.
I have been thankful often for that shower,
for it gave a better feeling about the live-oak,
and made me admire the weeping willow.

The live-oak, by the way, has a leaf very
little like the typical oak—it is elliptical in
shape and smooth in outline. The curious
parasitic moss that so frequently covers the
tree obscures the really handsome foliage.

The English Oak, grand tree that aimee
grows well in America, as everything English
should by right, and there are fine trees of
this Quercus Robur on Long Island. The acorns
are of unusual elegance, as the photograph
which shows them will prove.

The red oak, the black oak, the scarlet oak,
all splendid forest trees of the Northeast, are
in the group of confusion that can be readily
separated only by the timber-cruiser, who knows

46

THESGROWTH OF THE OAK

every tree in the forest for its economic value,
or by the botanist, with his limp-bound Gray‘s
Manual in hand. I confess to bewilderment
in five minutes after the differences have been
explained to me, and I enjoyed, not long ago,
the confusion of a skilful nurseryman who was
endeavoring to show me his young trees of
red oak which the label proved to be scarlet!
But the splendidly effective trees themselves
can be fully appreciated, and the distinctions
will appear as one studies carefully the features
of these living gifts of mature’s greenness.
The trees wait on one, and once the habit of
appreciation and investigation is formed, each

Acorns of the English oak

47

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

walk afield, in forest or park, leads to the
acquirement of some new bit of tree-lore, that
becomes more precious and delightful as it is
passed on and commented upon in association
with some other member of the happily grow-
ing fraternity of nature-lovers.

These oak notes are not intended to be
complete, but only to suggest some _ points
for investigation and appreciation to my fellows
in the brotherhood. I have never’ walked
between Trenton and New York, and _there-
fore never made the desired acquaintance with
the scrub-oaks along the way. Nor have I
dipped as fully into the oak treasures of the
Arnold Arboretum as I want to some day.
But my camera is yet available and the trees
are waiting; the tree love is growing and the
tree friends are inviting, and together we will
add to the oak knowledge and to that thankful-
ness for God and life and love and friends that
the trees do most constantly cause to flourish.

48

Ts Vid

We
we

,
‘vy

1, the pines— seem to
7 not. quite so _exclu-

ow the ‘South. The

“ long life: and
den too, as
ins, not to the plains;
steep: slopes with their varied deep
er_ than as. standing against the
“a the-sea— Yet I venture to think
1e most! of “us in the East see oftenest
pines “ebuliar te the lowlands, as we flit
Tom city to city over the steel highways of
travel, and have most to do, in an econom-
ical sense, with a pine that does not come
north of the Carolinas—the yellow pine which
furnishes our familiar house - flooring.
The pine family, as we discuss it, is not all
pines, in exactitude —it includes many diverse

$i

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

trees that the botanist describes as conifers.
These cone-bearing trees are nearly all ever-
greens—that is, the foliage persists the year
round, instead of being deciduous, as the leaf-
dropping maples, oaks, birches, and the like
are scientifically designated. Historically the
pines are of hoary age, for they are closely
related to the growths that furnished the geo-
logic coal measures stored up in the founda-
tions of the earth for our use now. Econom-
ically, too, all the pine family together is of
vast importance —“the most important order of
forest trees in the economy of civilized man,”
says Dr. Fernow; for, as he adds, the cone-
bearing trees “have furnished the bulk of the
material of which our civilization is built.”
As usual, civilization has destroyed ruthlessly,
thoughtlessly, almost viciously, in using this
material; wherefore the devastation of the for-
ests, moving them back from us farther and
farther until in many regions they are but a
thin fringe, has left most of us totally unfa-
miliar with these trees, of the utmost beauty
as well as of the greatest value.

To know anything at all of the spruces,

§2

A lone pine on the Indian River

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

pines and hemlocks is to love them for the
refreshment there is in their living presence,
rather than to consider them merely for the
timber value. But the point of view differs
immensely with one’s occupation. I remember
finding in the depths of an Alleghany forest
a comparatively rare native orchid, then new
to me—the round-leaved or orbicular habe-
naria. While I was gloating over it with my
camera a gray-haired native of the neighbor-
hood joined me, and, to my surprise, assisted
in the gloating—he, too, loved the woods and
the plants. Coming a little later to a group
of magnificent hemlocks, with great, clean,
towering trunks reaching up a hundred feet
through the soft maples and yellow birches
and beeches which seemed dwarfed by these
veterans, I exclaimed in admiration. “Yes,”
he said, “them’s mighty fine hemlocks. I
calc’late thet one to the left would bark
near five dollars’ wuth!” On the rare plant
we had joined in esthetic appreciation, but
the hemlock was to the old lumberman but
a source of tan- bark.

This search for tannin, by the yvaygee

St

THE PINES

to blame for much wanton destruction. Young
hemlocks, from four to six inches in diameter,
gee iclled, stripped. of their- bark, and ‘left
cumbering the ground, to invite fire and to
make of the woods an unkempt cemetery.
he. fall of a tree from* natural -causes’ is fol-
lowed by the interesting and beauty- making
process of its mossy decay and return to the
forest floor, furnishing in the process nour-
ishment for countless seedlings and plants. A
tree felled in maturity under enlightened for-
est management is all removed for its timber,
and leaves the ground clear; but the opera-
tions of the bark-hunter leave only hideous
destruction and a “slash” that is most difficult
to clear in later years.

This same hemlock makes a most impres-
sive forest. To walk among primeval hem-
locks brings healing to the mind and peace to
the soul, as one realizes fully that “the groves
were God’s first temples,” and that God is
close to one in these beneficent solitudes,
where petty things must fall away, vexations
cease, and man’s spiritual nature absorb the
message of the forest.

55

Parti wie par CEN

Hemlock Hill, Arnold Arboretum ( Boston)

DAE OP INES

I wonder how many of my readers realize
that an exquisite bit of real hemlock forest lies
not five miles from Boston Commoner At the
Arnold Arboretum, that noble collection of
trees and plants, “Hemlock Hill” is assuming
Geeper majesty year after year as ‘its trees
pam ape and size. It «presents exactly the
pyre forest conditions, and makes accessible to
thousands the full beauty and soothing that
nothing but a coniferous forest can provide
for man. There is the great collateral advan-
Pe. too, that. to reach~ Hemlock Hill, the
visitor must use a noble entrance, and pass
other trees and plants which, in the adequate
setting here given, cannot but do him much
good, and prepare him for the deep sylvan
temple of the hemlocks he is seeking. To
visit the Arboretum at the time when the
curious variety of the apple relatives— pyruses
and the like—bloom, is to secure a_ great
benefit of sight and scent, and it is almost
certain to make one resolve to return when
these blossoms shall, by nature’s perfect work,
have become fruit. Here the fruit is grown
for its beauty only, and thus no gastronomic

Sif

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

possibilities interfere with the appreciation of
color, and form, and situation! But again, to
come to the Arboretum some time during the
reign of the lilacs is to experience an veyvem
greater pleasure, perhaps, for here the old farm
garden “laylock” assumes a wonderful diversity
of form and color, from the palest wands of
the Persian sorts to the deepest blue of some
of the French hybrids.

The pines themselves will well repay any
investigation and appreciation. Seven species
are with us in the New England and Middle
Atlantic States, seven more are found South,
while the great West, with its yet magnificent
forests, has twenty-five pines of distinct char-
acter. The white pine is perhaps most famil-
iar to us, because of its economic importance,
and it is as well the tallest and most notable
of all those we see:-in the East: Fromme
first essay as a seedling, with its original clus-
ter of five delicate blue-green leaflets, to its
lusty youth, when it is spreading and broad,
if given room to grow, it is a fine objren
and I have had some thrills of joy at finding
this splendid common thing planted in well-

58

TE PINES

placed groups on the grounds of wealthy men,
instead of some Japanese upstart with a name
a yard long and a truly crooked Oriental dis-
position! In age the white pine dominates any
landscape, wearing even the scars of its long
battle with the elements with stately dignity.
A noble pair of white pines on the shore of
Lake Champlain I remember especially —they
were the monarchs of the lakeside as they
towered above all other trees. Ragged they
were, their symmetry gone long years ago
through attacks of storms and through strife
with the neighboring trees that had succumbed
while they only suffered and stood firm. Yet
they seemed all complete, of proved strength
and staying power, and their aspect was not
of defiance or anger, but rather indicative of
beneficent strength, as if they said, “Here we
stand; somewhat crippled, it is true, but yet
pointing upright to the heavens, yet vigorous,
yet seed-bearing and cheerful!”

Another group of these white pines that
stood close to some only less picturesque red
pimes on the ‘shores of a pond deep in the
Adirondacks emphasized again for me _ one

59

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

May day the majesty of this beneficent friend
of mankind; and yet another old pine mon-
arch against the sunset sky pointed the west-
ward way from the picturesque Cornell campus,
and alas! also pointed the danger to even this
one unreplaceable tree when modern “enter-
prise” constructs a trolley line on a scenic
route, ruthlessly destroying the very features
that make the route desirable, rather than go
to any mechanical trouble!

My readers will easily recall for themselves
just the same sort of “old pine” groups they
have record of on memory’s picture - gallery,
and will, I am sure, agree with me as to the
informality, dignity and true beauty of these
survivors of the forest, all of which deserve
to be appreciatively cared for, against any
encroachment of train, trolley or lumberman.

I am ashamed to say I have not yet seen
the blossoms of the white pine, which the
botanists tell us come in early spring, minute
and light brown, to be followed by the six-
inch-long cones which mature the second year.
I promise my camera that another spring it
shall be turned toward these shy blossoms.

60

THE PINES

Any one who has traveled south of Virginia,
even by the Pullman way of not seeing, cannot
fail to have noted the lovely green leaf-foun-
tains springing up from the ground along the
mailroads, Lhese are the young trees of the
long-leaved or Southern yellow pine. How
beautiful they are, these narrow leaves of vivid
green, more than a foot long, drooping grace-
fully from the center outward, with none of
the stiffness of our Northern species! In some
places they seem to fairly bubble in green
from all the surface of the ground, so close
are they. And the grand long-leaved pine
itself, maintained in lusty vigor. above these
greeneries, is a tree of simple dignity, empha-
sized strongly when seen at its best either
ime the uncut forest, or in a planted avenue.
Mevot the North are helping to ruin the next
generation of Southern pines by lavish use, for
decorations, of the young trees of about two
feet high, crowded with the long drooping
emerald needles. The little cut-off pine lasts
a week or two, in a parlor—it. took four or
five years to grow!

All pine-cones are interesting, and there is

61

The fountain-like effect of the young long-leaved pine

(3a ae

The long-leaved pines of the South

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

a great variation between the different species.
The scrub-pine one sees along the railroads
between New York and Philadelphia has rather
stubby cones, while the pitch-pine, beloved of
the fireplace for its “light-knots,” has a some-
what pear-shaped and gracefully disposed cone.
A most peculiar cone is that of a variety of
the Norway pine, which, among other species
brought from Europe, is valued for ornament.
The common jack-pine of the Middle States
hillsides wears symmetrical and handsome cones
with dignity. Cones are, of course, the fruits
or seed-holders of the pine, but the seeds
themselves are found at the base of the scales,
or parts of the cones, attached in pairs. Each
cone, like an apple, has in its care a number
of seeds, which it guards against various dan-
gers until a kindly soil encourages the rather
slow germination characteristic of the order.
The nurserymen have imported many pines
from Europe, which give pleasing variety to
our ornamental plantings, and aid in enriching
the winter coloring. The Austrian pine and
the Scotch pine are welcome additions to our
own pine family. In these days of economic

64

THE PINES

chemistry and a deficient rag supply, every
reader of these words is probably in close
proximity to an important spruce product—
paper. The manufacturers say, with hand on
heart, that they do not use much wood pulp,
but when one has passed a great paper-mill
flanked on all sides by piles of spruce logs,
with no bales of rags in sight anywhere, he is
tempted to think otherwise! Modern forestry is
now planting trees on waste lands for the pulp
“crop,” and the common poplar is coming in
to relieve the spruces.

Beautiful trees are these spruces and _ firs,
either in the forest or when brought by the
planter to his home grounds. The leaves are
much shorter than those of most pines, and
clothe the twigs closely. There is a _ vast
variety in color, too, from the wonderful
whitish or “glaucous” blue of the Colorado
blue spruce, to the deep shining green of
Nordmann’s fir, a splendid introduction from
the Caucasus. Look at them, glistening in the
winter sun, or drooping with the clinging
snow; walk in a spruce wood, inhaling the
bracing balsamic fragrance which seems so

65

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

kindly to the lungs; hark to the music of the
wind in their tops, telling of health and pu-
rity, of God’s love and provision for man’s
mind and heart, and you will begin to know
the song of the firs. To really hear this grand
symphony, for such it then becomes, you must
listen to the wind playing on the tops of a
great primeval coniferous forest, of scores and
hundreds of acres or miles in extent. And
even then, many visits are needed, for there are
movements to this symphony—the allegro of the
gale, the scherzo of the easy morning breeze,
the deep adagio of a rain-storm, and the andante
of warm days and summer breezes, when you
may repose prone upon a soft carpet of pine
needles, every sense made alert, yet soothed,
by the master-theme you are hearing.

There is a little wood of thick young pines,
interspersed with hard maple and an occasional
birch, close by the lake of the Eagles, where
my summers are made happy. The closeness
of the pines has caused their lower branches
to die, as always in the deep forest, and the
falling needles, year by year, have deepened
the soft brown carpet that covers the forest

66

ite pines

An avenue of wh

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

floor. Some one, years ago, struck by the aisles
that the straight trunks mark out so clearly,
called this the “Cathedral Woods.” The name
seems appropriate at all times, but especially
when, on a warm Sunday afternoon, I lie at
ease on the aromatic carpet, hearing the wom
organ tones in the pine tops, and drinking in
God’s forest message.

I have visited these pine woods at midnight,
when a full moon, making brilliant the near-by
lake, gave but a ghostly gloom in the deep
deep silence of the Cathedral; bute
impressive, I have often trodden through in a
white fog, when the distance was misty and
dim, and the aisles seemed longer and higher,
and to lead one further away from the trifles
of temper and trial. Indeed, I do not believe
that any one who has but once fully received
from the deep forest that which it gives out
so freely and constantly can- ever thinkijms
things trivial, or of minor annoyances, while
again within its soothing portals.

But of the trees of the forest of pine and
spruce it must be noted that sometimes the
deepest, glossiest green of the leaves as presented

68

THE PINES

to the eye only hides the dainty, white-lined
interior surface of those same leaves. To the
outside, a somber dignity, unassailable, un-
touched by frost or sun, protective, defenseful,
as nature often appears to the careless observer;
but inside is light, softly reflected, revealing
unsuspected delicacies of structure and finish.

To us who are not woodsmen or “timber-
cruisers” the most familiar of all the spruces
is the introduced form from Norway. Its yel-
lowish green twigs are bright and cheerful, and
in specimens that have reached the fruiting
age the crown of cones, high up in the tree,
is an additional charm, for these soft brown
“strobiles,” as the botanist calls them, are
smooth and regular, and very different from
those of the rugged pines. I have often been
told that the Norway spruce was short-lived,
and that it became unkempt in age; but now
that I have lived for ten years and more beside
a noble specimen, I know that the change from
the upreaching push of youth to the semi-
drooping sedateness of maturity is only a taking
on of dignity. There stands on the home
grounds of a true tree-lover in Pennsylvania

69

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

a Norway spruce that has been untouched by
knife or disaster since its planting many years
ago. No pruning has shortened in its “leader”
or top, no foolish idea of “trimming it up”
has been allowed to deprive it of the very
lowest branches, which, in consequence, now
sweep the ground in full perfection, while the
unchecked point of the tree still aspires upward
forty feet above. A_ beautiful object is this
tree—perhaps the most beautiful of all the
conifers in my friend’s great “pinetum,” with
its scores of rare species. Let me ask, then,
those who would set this or any other tree of
evergreen about the home, to see to it that the
young tree from the nursery has all its lower
branches intact, and that its top has never
been mutilated. With care, such specimens
may be obtained and successfully transplanted,
and will grow in time to a lovely old age of
steady greenness.

The balsam fir is almost indistinguishable
from the Norway spruce when young, but soon
grows apart from it in habit, and is hardly as
desirable, even though a native. “It/4s igo
in the true balsamic odor; and this, again, is

7O

RAE OPEN ES

its destruction; for one “spruce pillow” may
destroy a half dozen trees!

The white cedar, our common _ juniper,
with its aromatic blue berries or fruits, is per-
haps the most familiar of all the native ever-
greens. It comes to us of Pennsylvania all too
freely at Christmas time, when the tree of joy
and gifts may mean, in the wholesale, sad

forest destruction. This juniper I have
associated particularly with ,

the dogwood
and the red-
bud; to the
bloom of
which it sup- S
plies a most
pertect back-
ground in the
favorite Cone-
maeo park; a
purely natural
reservation of
things beautiful
along the Pennsylvania
railroad. Its lead-pencil

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

sister, the red cedar, reaches our literary senses
as closely as does the pulp-making spruce!

I might write much of the rare introduced
cypresses from Japan and China, and of the
peculiar variations that have been worked out
by the nurserymen among the native pines and
firs; yet this would not be talk of the trees of
the open ground, but rather of the nursery
and the park. Also, if I had but seen them,
there would be much to say about the mag-
nificent conifers of the great West, from the
giant red-woods, or sequoias, of the Mariposa
grove in California to the richly varied’ pines
of the Rockies. But I can only suggest to my
readers the intimate consideration of all this
great pine family, so peculiarly valuable to
mankind, and the use of some of the pines
and spruces about the home for the steady
cheer of green they so fully provide.

72

Apples

' N TELA Ho' remember one of the ad-
monitions of my youth, brought upon

me by an attempt to take apple-blos-

soms from a tree in bloom because they were
beautiful. I was told that it was wrong to
pluck for any purpose, the flowers of fruit
trees, because the _ possible fruitage might
thereby he reduced. ‘Viggt is, feeding the eye
was improper, but it was always in order to
conserve all the possibilities for another organ
of the body. .In those days we had not
learned that nature provides against contingen-
cies, and that not one-tenth of all the _ blos-

“set” as much

soms would be needed to
fruit as the tree could possibly mature.
The*app:e, well called the king: of fruits,
is worthy of all admiration as a fruit; but I
do “not see why that need interfere in the
least with its consideration as an object of

beauty. On the contrary, such consideration is
75

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

all the better for the apple, which is {ia
only most desirable and pleasing in its relation
to the dessert, the truly celebrated American
pie, the luscious dumpling of the housewife,
and the Italian’s fruit-stand of our cities, but
is at the same time a benefaction to the eye
and the sense of beauty, in tree, in blossom,
and in fruit.

It is of the esthetic value of the applend
would write, leaving its supreme place in
pomology unassailed. Look at the young apple
tree in the “nursery row,” where it has been
growing a year since it was “budded”—that
is, mysteriously changed from the wild and
untamed fruit of nature to the special variety
designed by the nurseryman. It is a straight,
shapely wand, in most varieties, though it is
curious to find that some apples, notably
the favorite Rhode Island Greening, start in
promptly to be picturesquely crooked and
twisty. As it grows and branches under the
cultivation and guidance of the orchardist, it
maintains a lusty, hearty aspect, its yellowish,
reddish or brownish twigs—again according
to variety—spreading out to the sun and the

76

APPICES

air freely. A decade passes, and the sparse
showing of bloom that has decorated it each
spring gradually gives place to a great glory
of flowers. The tree is about to bear, and it
assumes the character of maturity; for while it
grows on soberly for many years, there is now
a spreading, a sort of relaxation, very different
from the vigorous upshooting of its early
youth, After. 2 crop -ot two, the tree has
Become, to’ .the . eye, the “familiar. orchard
member, and it leans a little from the blasts
of winter, twists aside from the perpendicular,
spreads comfortably over a great expanse of
ground, and settles down to its long, useful,
and truly beautiful life.

While the young orchard is trim and
handsome, I confess to a greater liking for
the rugged old trees that have followed blos-
som with fruit in unstinted profusion for a
meneration..... There. is a certain . character «of
sturdy good-will about these substantial stems
that the clinging snows only accentuate in
winter. The framework of limb and twig is
fecy wditterent. from? that ..of the. ‘other - ‘trees,
and the twisty lines seem to mean warmth

vive

JOVUIM Ur pieyoo adde uy

APPLES

and cheer, even against a frosty sky. And
these old veterans are house trees, too—they
do not suggest the forest or the broad expanse
of nature, but, instead, the proximity of man
and the home, the comfortable summer after-
noon under their copious leafage, the great
piles of ruddy-cheeked fruit in autumn.

I need hardly say anything of the apple-
blossoms, for those who read these words are
almost certain to have long appreciated their
delicately fragrant blush and white loveliness.
he, apricot andthe cherry. -are~ the) first . of
the fruit trees to sing the spring song, and
they cover themselves with white, in advance
of any sign of green leaves on their twigs.
The apple has an advantage; coming more
deliberately, the little pink buds are set amidst
the soft greens of the opening foliage, and
the leaves and flowers expand together in
their symphony of color and fragrance. The
grass has grown lush by this time, the dande-
lions are punctuating it with gold, and _ every-
thing is in the full riot of exuberant spring-
time.

But there are apples and apples and apples.

79

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

Even the plain orchard gives us a difference
in flowers, as well as in tree aspect. Notice
the trees this coming May; mark the flat,
white flowers on one tree, the cup-shaped,
pink-veined blooms on another. Follow both
through the fruiting, and see whether the
sweeter flower brings the more sugary fruit.
This fact ascertained, perhaps it may be fol-
lowed up by observation of the distinctive
color of the twigs and young branches—for
there are wide differences in this respect, ‘and
the canny tree- grower knows his pets afar.

Perhaps there. is. a “crab”. 1 oti
orchard, ready to give the greatest burst of
bloom—for the crab-apple flower is usually
finer and more fragrant than any other of the
cultivated forms. It is an especial refuge of
the birds and the bees, you will find, and it
invites them with its rare fragrance and deeper
blush, so that they may work all the more
earnestly at the pollination without which ll
this richness of bloom would be ineffective in
nature’s reproductive scheme.

This same crab-apple is soon to be, as its
brilliant fruit matures, a notable object of

80

When the apple trees blossom

beauty, for few ornamental trees can vie with .
us) display of shining color. There’ was a
great old crab right in the flower garden of
my boyhood home, amid quaint box-trees,
snowballs and lilacs. Lilies-of-the-valley flour-
ished in its shadow, the delicate bleeding-
heart mingled with old-fashioned irises and
peonies at its feet. From early spring until
, 81

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH: THE TREES

mid-August the crab-apple held court of
beauty there—and an always hungry boy often
found something in addition to beauty in the
red and yellow fruits that were acid but
aromatic.

With a little attention, if one would plant
crab-apples for their loveliness of fruit hue
and form, a fine contrast of color may be
had; ‘for some varieties are perfect “tn egress
yellow, against others in deepest scarlet, bloom-
covered with blue haze, and yet others which
carry all the colors from cream to crimson—
the latter as the warm sun paints deeper.

Why do we not plant more fruit trees for
beauty? Not one of our familiar fruits will
fail us in this respect, if so considered. The
apricot will often have its white flowers open
to match the purity of the last snow, the
cherry will follow with a burst of bloom, the
apples and crab-apples will continue the show,
aided by plum and pear and peach, and the
quince —ah, there’s a flower in a green enamel
setting !—will close the blooming-time. But
the cherry fruits now redden in shining round-
ness, the earlier apples throw rich gleams of

82

APPLIES

color “te- the’ eye, and there is: chromatic
beauty until frost bids the last russets leave
their stems, leaving bare the framework of the
trees, to teach us in lines of symmetry and
efficiency how strength and elegance are com-
bined in nature’s handiwork. Do you fear
that some of the fruit may be taken? What
o: it? Plant for beauty, and the fruit is all
extra— give it away freely, and pass on to others
some of God’s good gifts, to your own true
happiness !

There is another crab-apple that is dis-
tinctive in its elegance, color and fragrance.
It is the true “wild crab” of Eastern North
America, and one who makes its acquaintance
in blooming time will never forget it. The tree
is not large, and it is likely to be set with
crooked, thorny branches; but the flowers!
Deep pink or rosy red chalices, rather longer
than the commonplace apple-blossom, and
hanging on long and slender stems in a cer-
tain picturesquely stiff disposition, they are a
joy for the senses of sight and _ fragrance.
This notable native may be found on rich
slopes and in dry glades—it is not fond of

83

in bloom

The Spectabilis crab

wr PLES

swamps. It is grown by some enlightened
nurserymen, too, and can well be planted in
the home grounds to their true adornment.
The blossoms give way to form handsome
yellow fruits, about an inch in diameter,
which are themselves much more ornamental
than edible, for even the small boy will not
investigate a second time the bitter flesh. I
have heard that a cider of peculiar “hardness”
and potency, guaranteed to unsettle the firm-
est head, is made from these acid fruits—but
I have not found it necessary to extend my
tree studies in that direction.

The states west of Kansas do not know
this lovely wild crab, to which the _ botanists
give a really euphonious designation as Pyrus
coronaria. ‘There is a prairie-states crab- apple,
which I have never: seen, but. which, I am
told, has nothing like the beauty of our
exquisite Eastern native. This Western species
lacks the long stem and the bright color of
the flowers of our favorite, and _ its fruits,
while quite as viciously sour, are a dull and
greasy green. The great West has many other
things, but we have the wild crab-apple.

85

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

Rather between, as to beauty, is the native
crab-apple of the Southland, which is known
as the Soulard crab. It is not as attractive
as our own Eastern gem, a pure native pos-
session, and one which our foreign friends
envy us.

Curiously enough, our own fruiting apple
is not a native of America. It was at a meet-
ing of a New England pomological association
that I heard, several years: ago, an Oold@ imam
of marvelous memory and power of observa-
tion tell of his recollections of seventy years,
notable among which was his account of see-
ing the first good apples, as a boy, during a
visit in the state of New York. Think of it!
the most widely grown and beautiful of all our
fruits hardly older than the railroad in America!
We owe the apples we eat to Europe, for the
start, the species being probably of Himalayan
origin. America has greatly developed the
apple, however, as one who has»looked over
the fruit tables at any great exposition will
promptly testify, and nearly all our really good
varieties are of American origin. Moreover,
we are the greatest apple-growers in the world,

86

Fruits of the wild crab

and the yearly production probably exceeds a
hundred millions of barrels.

The curious story of “Johnny Appleseed” is
given us by historians, who tell us of this
semi-religious enthusiast who roamed _ barefoot
over the wilds of Ohio and Indiana a century
ago, sowing apple-seeds in the scattered clear-
ings, and living to see the trees bearing fruit,
selections from which probably are interwoven
among the varieties of today. New varieties of

87

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

apples, by the way, come from seeds sown, and
trees grown from them, with a bare chance that
one in ten thousand may be worth keeping.
When a variety seems thus worthy, “buds” or
“scions” from the original tree are “budded”
or “grafted” by the nurseryman into young
seedling trees, which are thus changed into
the selected sort. To sow the seeds of your
favorite Baldwin does not imply that you will
get Baldwin trees, by any means; you will
more likely have a partial reversion to the
acid and bitter original species.

It is not only for the fruit that we are
indebted to the Old World, but also for some
distinctively beautiful and most ornamental va-
rieties of the apple, not by any means as well
known among us as they ought to be. The
nurserymen sell as an ornamental small tree a
form known as “Parkman’s double - flowering
crab,” which produces blooms of much beauty,
like delicate little roses. Few of, them, how-
ever, know of the glorious show that the spring
brings where there is a proper planting of the
Chinese and Japanese crab-apples, with some
other hybrids and varieties. To readers in New

88

APPLES

England a pilgrimage to Boston is always in
order. In the Public Gardens are superb speci-
mens of these crab-apples from the Orient,
as well as those native to this continent, and
for several weeks in May they may be enjoyed.
They are enjoyed by the Bostonians, who are in
this, as in many things, better served by their
authorities than is any other American city.
What other city, for instance, gives its people
such a magnificent spring show of hyacinths,
tulips, daffodils and the like?

It is at the wonderful Arnold Arboretum,
that Mecca of tree-lovers just outside of Bos-
ton and really within its superbly managed park
system, that the greatest show of the “pyrus
family,” as the apples and pears are botani-
cally called, may be found. Here have been
gathered the lovely blooming trees of all the
hardy world, to the delight of the eye and
the nose, and the education of the mind. To
me the most impressive of all was a wonder-
ful Siberian crab (one must look for Pyrus
baccata on the label, as the Arboretum folks
are not in love with “common” names) close
by the little greenhouses. Its round head was

89

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

purely white, with no hint of pink, and the
mass of bloom that covered it was only punc-
tuated by the green of the expanding leaves.
The especial elegance of this crab was in its
whiteness, and that elegance was not diminished
by the later masses of little yellow and red,
almost translucent, fruits.

A somewhat smaller tree is commonly called
the Chinese flowering apple, and its early
flowers remind one strongly of the beauty of
our own wild crab, as they are deeper in color
than most of the crabs, being almost coral-red
in bud. This “spectabilis,” as it is familiarly
called, is a gem, as it opens the season of the
apple blooms with its burst of pink richness.

The beauty-loving Japanese have a festival
at the time of the cherry-blooming—and it is
altogether a festival of beauty, not connected
with the food that follows the flowers. They
actually dare to cut the blossoms, too, for
adornment, and all the populace take time to
drink in the message of the spring. Will we
workaday Americans ever dare to “waste” so
much time, and go afield to absorb God’s
provision of soul and sense refreshment in the

go

: NT =e Ss id
. hat oe ©
ie eat By, 4
. 15 “de .

The beauty of a fruiting apple branch

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

spring, forgetting for the time our shops and
desks, our stores and marts?

Professor Sargent, that deep student of trees
who has built himself a monument, which is
also a beneficence to all mankind, in the great
volumes of his “Silva of North America,” lives
not far from Boston, and he loves especially
that jewel of the apple family which, for want
of a common name, | must designate scientifi-
cally as Pyrus floribunda. On his own magnif-
icent estate, as well as at the Arboretum, this
superb shrub or small tree riots in rosy beauty
in early spring. While the leaves do come
with these flowers, they are actually crowded
back out of apparent sight by the straight
wands of rose-red blooms, held by the twisty
little tree at every angle and in indescribable
beauty. If the visitor saw nothing but this
Floribunda apple —“abundant flowering” sure
enough—on his pilgrimage, he might well be
satisfied, especially if he them and ~ there
resolved to see it again, either as he planted it
at home or journeyed hither another spring
for the enlargement of his soul.

There are other of these delightful crabs or

92

WE PILES

apples to be enjoyed— Ringo, Kaido, Toringo
—nearly all of Japanese origin, all of distinct
beauty, and all continuing that beauty in hand-
some but inedible fruits that hang most of the
summer. My tree-loving friends can well study
these, and, I hope, plant them, instead of
repeating continually the monotonously familiar
shrubs and trees of ordinary commerce.

But I have not spoken enough of one nota-
ble feature of the every-day apple tree that we
may see without a journey to the East. The
fully set fruiting branch of an apple tree in
health and vigor, properly nurtured and pro-
tected against fungous disease by modern
“spraying,” is a thing of beauty in its form
and color. See those deep red Baldwins shine
overhead in the frosty air of early fall; note the
elegance of form and striping on the leathery-
skinned Ben Davis; appreciate true apples of
ma Sct In oteen enamel on a tree of the
suuny Bellefleur! These m the fall; but it’ is
hardly full summer before the closely set
branches of Early Harvest are as beautiful as
any orange-tree, or the more upright Red
Astrachan is ablaze with fruit of red and

93

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

yellow. Truly, an apple orchard might be
arranged to give a series of pictures of changing
beauty of color and growth from early spring
until fall frost, and then to follow with a daily
panorama of form and line against snow and
sky until the blossoms peeped forth again. Let
us learn, if we do not already love the apple
tree, to love it for its beauty all the year!

94

R
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SAM ty etn et

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tllows and yoplars

YY the rivers of Babylon, there we sat

y down, yea, we wept, when we remem-
| bered Zion. -Upon the willows in the
Hs thereof we manced- our harps.” ‘Thus
sang the Psalmist of the sorrows»of the exiles
in Babylon, and his song has»fastened the name

f ‘of the great and wicked city upon one of the

most familiar willows, while also making it
"weep"; for the common weeping willow is
botanically named Salix Babylonica.

It. may be that the forlorn Jews did hang
their harps upon the tree we know as the weep-
ing willow, that species being credited to Asia
as.a place of origin; but it is open to doubt,
for the very obvious ,reason that the weeping
willow is distinctly unadapted to use as a harp-
rack, and one is at a loss to know just how
the instruments in question would have been
hung thereon. It is probable that the willows
along the rivers of Babylon were of other

a7

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

species, and that the connection of the city of
the captivity and the tears of the exiles with
the long, drooping branches of the noble tree
which has thus been sorrowfully named was a
purely sentimental one. Indeed, the weeping
willow is also called Napoleon’s willow, because
the great Corsican found much pleasure in a
superb willow of the same species which stood
on the lonely prison isle of St. Helena, and
from twigs of which many trees in the United
States have been grown.

The willow family presents great contrasts,
both physical and sentimental. It is a symbol
both of grief and of grace. The former char-
acterization is undoubtedly because of the allu-
sion of the one hundred and _thirty-seventh
Psalm, as quoted above, thoughtlessly extended
through the centuries; and the latter, as when
a beautiful and slender woman is said to be of
“willowy” form, obviously because of the real
grace of the long, swinging wands of the same
tree. I might hint that a better reason for
making the willow symbolize grief is because
charcoal made from its twigs and branches is
an important and almost essential ingredient of

98

PELELOY S AND POPLARS

gunpowder, through which a sufficiency of grief
has undoubtedly entered the world!

Willow twigs seem the very essence of fra-
mility, as they break from the parent tree at a
touch; and yet one of the willows furnishes the
tough, pliable and enduring withes from which
are woven the baskets of the world. The wil-
lows, usually thin in branch, sparse of some-
what pale foliage, of so-called mournful mien,
are yet bursting with vigor and life; indeed,
the spread and the value of the family is by
reason of this tenacity and virility, which makes
a broken twig, floating on the surface of a
turbid stream, take root and grow on a sandy
bank where nothing else can maintain itself,
wresting existence and drawing strength and
beauty from the very element whose ravages of
flood and current it bravely withstands.

Apparently ephemeral in wood, growing
quickly and perishing as quickly, the willows
nevertheless supply us with an important pre-
servative element, extracted from their bitter
juices. Salicylic acid, made from willow bark,
prevents change and arrests decay, and it is an
important medical agent as well.

99

A weeping willow in early spring

PISO AND POPLARS

Flexible and seemingly delicate as the little
tree is when but just established, there is small
promise of the rugged and sturdy trunk that
in a few years may stand where the: chance
twig lodged. And the color of the willows—
ah! there’s a point for full enthusiasm, for this
faumly of oerief_-furnishes a—cheerful note for
every month in the year, and runs the whole
scale of greens, grays, yellows and browns, and
even adds to the winter landscape touches of
blazing orange and bright red across the snow.
Before ever one has thought seriously of the
coming of spring, the long branchlets of the
weeping willow have quickened into a hint of
lovely yellowish green, and those same branch-
lets will be holding their green leaves against
a wintry blast when most other trees have given
up their foliage under the frost’s urgency. Often
have the orange-yellow twigs of the golden
osier illumined a somber country-side for me
as I looked from the car window; and _ close
by may be seen other willow bushes of brown,
@uees.seray. and: even’ purple, to. add: to the
color compensation of the season. Then may
come into the view, as one flies past, a great

IOI

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

old weeping willow rattling its bare twigs in
the wind; and, if a stream is passed, there are
sure to be seen on its banks the sturdy trunks
of the white and the black willows at least.
Think of an average landscape with the willows
eliminated, and there will appear a great vacancy
not readily filled by another tree.

The weeping willow has always made a strong
appeal to me, but never one of simple grief or
sorrow. Its expression is rather of great dig-
nity, and I remember watching in somewhat of
awe one which grew near my childhood’s home,
as its branches writhed and twisted in a violent
rain-storm, seeming then fairly to agonize, so
tossed and buffeted were they by the wind.
But soon the storm ceased, the sun shone on
the rounded head of the willow, turning the
raindrops to quickly vanishing diamonds, and
the great tree breathed only a gentle and
benignant peace. When, in later years, I came
to know the moss-hung live-oak of the South-
land, the weeping willow assumed to me a new
dignity and value in the northern landscape,
and I have strongly resented the attitude of a
noted writer on “Art Out of Doors” who says

102

in a storm

llow

ing wi

The weep

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

of it: “I never once have seen it where it did
not hurt the effect of its surroundings, or at
least, if it stood apart from other trees, where
some tree of another species would not have
looked far better.” One of the great merits of
the tree, its difference of habit, its variation
from the ordinary, is thus urged against it.

I have spoken of the basket willow, which
is scientifically Salix viminalis, and an_ intro-
duction from Europe, as indeed are many of
the family. In my father’s nursery grew a
great patch of basket willows, annually cut to
the ground to make a profusion of “sprouts,”
from which were cut the “tying willows” used
to bind firmly together for shipment bundles
of young trees. It was an achievement to be
able to take a _ six-foot withe, and, deftly
twisting the tip of it under the heel to a
mass of flexible fiber, tie this twisted portion
into a substantial loop; and to have this novel
wooden rope then endure the utmost pull of
a vigorous man, as he braced his feet against
the bundle of trees in binding the withe upon
it, gave an impression of anything but weak-
ness on the part of the willow.

104

PEO S AND: -POPLARS

Who has not admired the soft gray silky
buds of the “pussy” willow, swelling with the
spring’s impulse, and ripening quickly into a
“catkin” loaded with golden pollen? Nowadays
the shoots of this willow are “forced” into
bud by the florists, and sold in the cities in
great quantities; but really to see it one must
find the low tree or bush by a stream in the
woods, or along the roadside, with a chance
to note its fullness of blossom. It is finest just
maen the hepaticas are at their bluest on the
warm hillsides; and, one sunny afternoon of a
spring journey along the north branch of the
Susquehanna river, I did not know which of
the two conspicuous ornaments of the deeply
wooded bank made me most anxious to jump
from the too swiftly moving train.

This pussy-willow has pleasing leaves, and
is a truly ornamental shrub or small tree which
will flourish quite well in a dry back yard, as
I have reason to know. One bright day in
February I found a pussy-willow tree, with its
deep purple buds showing not a hint of the
life within. The few twigs brought home
quickly expanded when placed in water, and

105

A pussy-willow in a_ park

PTE LOWS AND, POPLARS

gave us their forecast of the spring. One twig
was, out of curiosity, left in the water after the
catkins had faded, merely to see what would
happen. It bravely sent forth leaves, while at
the base little white rootlets appeared. Its
vigor appealing to us, it was planted in an arid
spot im our back yard, and it, is now, after a
year and a half, a handsome, slender young
tree that will give us a whole family of silken
pussy-buds to stroke and admire another spring.

This same little tree is called also the
glaucous willow, and it is botanically Salix
discolor. It is more distinct than some _ others
of the family, for the willow is a great mixer.
The tree expert who will unerringly distin-
guish between the red oak and the scarlet
oak by the precise angle of the spinose mar-
gins of the leaves (how I admire an accuracy
I do not possess!) will balk at which is crack
willow, or white willow, or yellow or blue
willow. The abundant vigor and vitality and
freedom of the family, and the fact that ‘it is
of what is known as the diccious habit —that
is, the flowers are. not complete, fertile and
infertile flowers being borne on separate trees

107

Blossoms of the

—make it most ready to hybridize. The
pollen of the black willow may fertilize the
flower of the white willow, with a result that
certainly tends to grayness on the worrying
head of the botanist who, in after years, is
trying to locate the result of the cross!
There is much variety in the willow flowers
—and I wonder how many observers really
notice any other willow “blossoms” than those
of the showy pussy? <A superb spring day
afield took me along a fascinatingly crooked
stream, the Conodoguinet, whose banks furnish
a congenial and as yet protected (because con-

108

white willow

cealed from the flower-hunting vandal) home
for wild flowers innumerable and most beauti-
ful, as well as trees that have ripened into
maturity. An- caplier visit at the time the
bluebells were ringing out their silent message
on the hillside, in exquisite beauty, with the
lavender phlox fairly carpeting the woods, gave
a glimpse of some promising willows on the
other side of the stream. Twilight and letters
to sign—how hateful the desk and its work
seem in these days of springing life outside!
—made a closer inspection impossible then, but
a golden Saturday afternoon found three of us,

109

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

of like ideals, hastening to this tree and plant
paradise. A mass of soft yellow drew us from
the highway across a field carpeted thickly
with bluet or “quaker lady,” to the edge of
the stream, where a continuous hum showed
that the bees were also attracted. It was one
splendid willow in full bloom, and I could not
and as yet cannot safely say whether it is the
crack willow or the white willow; but I can
affirm of a certainty that it was a delight to
the eye, the mind and the nostrils? “fie
extreme fragility of the smaller twigs, which
broke away from the larger limbs at the
lightest shake or jar, gave evidence of one of
Nature’s ways of distributing plant life; for it
seems that these twigs, as I have previously
said, part company with the parent tree most
readily, float away on the stream, and easily
establish themselves on banks and bars, where
their tough, interlacing roots soon form an
almost impregnable barrier to the onslaught of
the flood. Only a stone’s throw away there
stood a great old black willow, with a sturdy
trunk of ebon hue, crowned with a mass of
soft green leafage, lighter where the breeze

110

WILLOWS AND POPLARS

iited sup) the “underside to the sunlight.
Many times, doubtless, the winds had shorn
and the sleet had rudely trimmed this old
veteran, but there remained full life and vigor,
even more attractive than that of youth.
Most of the willows are shrubs rather than
fees, and there are endfess’ variations, as I
have before remarked. Further, the species
belonging at first in the Eastern Hemisphere
have spread well over our own side of the
globe, so that it seems odd to regard the white
willow and the weeping willow as foreigners.
At Niagara Falls, in the beautiful park on the
American side, on the islands amid the toss of
the waters, there are many willows, and those
planted by man are no less beautiful than those
resulting from Nature’s gardening. In spring
I have had pleasure in some splendid clumps of
a form with lovely golden leaves and a small,
furry catkin, found along the edge of the
American rapids. I wonder, by the way, how
many visitors to Niagara take note of the superb
collection of plants and trees there to be seen,
and which it is a grateful relief to consider
when the mind is wearied with the majesty

Ales

uontsod onstiajoeieyd B& UL MOT[IM ay VY

ay

=

oN

, 5 Oe PAA MY J

PEE OW S\ AND POPLARS

and the vastness of Nature’s forces shown in
the cataract? The birds are visitors to Goat
Island and the other islets that divide the
Niagara River, and they have brought there
the plants of America in wonderful variety.

There is one willow that has been used by
the nurserymen to produce a so-called weeping
form, which, like most of these monstrosities,
is not commendable. The goat willow is a
vigorous tree introduced from Europe, having
large and rather broad and coarse leaves, dark
green above and whitish underneath. It is
faken as a “stock,” upon which, at a conve-
nient height, the skilled juggler with trees
grafts a drooping or pendulous form known as
the Kilmarnock willow, thus changing the habit
@eetne thee cso. “that it then “weeps” to the
ground. Fortunately, the original tree some-
times triumphs, the graft dies, and a _ lusty
goat willow rears a rather shapely head to
the sky.

This Kilmarnock willow is a favorite of the
peripatetic tree agent, and I have enjoyed
hugely one notable evidence of his persuasive
eloquence to be seen in a Lebanon Valley

ELS

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

town, inhabited by the quaint folk. known as
Pennsylvania Germans. All along the line of
the railroad traversing this valley may be seen
these distorted willows decorating the prim
front yards, and they are not so offensive when
used with other shrubs and trees. In this one
instance, however, the tree agent evidently
found a customer who was persuaded that if
one Kilmarnock willow was a good thing to
have, a dozen of them was twelve times better;
wherefore his dooryard is grotesquely adorned
with that many flourishing weepers, giving an
aspect that is anything but decorous or solemn.
Some time the vigilance of the citizen will be
relaxed, it may be hoped; he will neglect to
cut away the recurring shoots of the parent
trees, and they will escape and destroy the
weeping form which provides so much sarcastic
hilarity for the passers-by.

The willow, with its blood relation, the
poplar, is often “pollarded,” or trimmed for
wood, and its abundant vigor enables it to
recover from this process of violent abbrevia-
tion more satisfactorily than do most trees. The
result is usually a disproportionately large stem

114

PILE Oy Ss AND POPLARS

or bole, for the lopping off of great branches
always tends to a thickening of the main stem.
The abundant leafage of both willow and
poplar soon covers the scars, and there is less
cause to mourn than in the case of maples or
other “hard-wooded” trees.

If my readers will only add a willow section
to their mental observation outfit, there will be
much more to see and appreciate. Look for
and enjoy in the winter the variation in twig
color and bark hue; notice how smoothly lies
the covering on one stem, all rugged and
marked on another. In the earliest spring
examine the swelling buds, of widely differing
color and character, from which shortly will
spring forth the catkins or aments of bloom,
followed by the leaves of varied colors in the
varied species, and with shapes as_ varied.
Vivid green, soft gray, greenish yellow; dull
surface and shining surface above, pale green
to almost pure white beneath; from the long
and stringy leaf of the weeping willow to the
comparatively broad and thick leaf of the
pussy- willow — there is variety and interest in
the foliage well worth the attention of the

LBS

Clump of young white willows

PVELOW ss AND POPLARS

tree-lover. When winter comes, there will be
another set of contrasts to see in the way the
various species lose their leaves and get ready
for the rest time during which the buds
mature and ripen, and the winter colors again
shine forth.

These observations may be made anywhere
in America, practically, for the willow is almost
indifferent to locality, growing everywhere that
its far-reaching roots can find the moisture
which it loves, and which it rapidly transpires
to the thirsty air. As Miss Keeler well remarks,
(he genus Salix is. admirably fitted to go
forth and inhabit the earth, for it is tolerant
Gierall soils and asks only water. It creeps
nearer to the North Pole than any other woody
plant except its companion the birch. It trails
upon the ground or rises one hundred feet
fmeane air.- In North America it follows the
water-courses to the limit of the temperate
zone, enters the tropics, crosses the equator, and
appears in the mountains of Peru and Chili.

The books record one hundred and
sixty species in the world, and these sport and
hybridize to their own content and to the

117

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

despair of botanists. Then, too, it comes of
an ancient line; for impressions of leaves in the
cretaceous rocks show that it is one of the
oldest of plants.”

Common it is, and therefore overlooked;
but the reader may well resolve to watch the
willow in spring and summer, with its bloom
and fruit; to follow its refreshing color through
winter’s chill; to observe its cheer and dignity;
and to see the wind toss its slender wands and
turn its graceful leaves.

The poplars and the willows are properly
considered together, for together they form the
botanical world family of the Salicaceez. Many
characteristics of bloom and growth, of sap and
bark, unite the two, and surely both, though
alike common to the world, are common and
familiar trees to the dwellers in North America.

One of my earliest tree remembrances has
to do with a spreading light-leaved growth
passed under every day on the way to school—
and, like most school-boys, I was not unwill-
ing to stop for anything of interest that might
put off arrival at the seat of learnmieeeaiiee
great tree had large and peculiar winter. buds,

118

e

on

a Pa
ot

ese nonin ae

time

in spring

White poplars

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

that always seemed to have advance information
as to the coming of spring, for they would
swell out and become exceedingly shiny at the
first touch of warm sun. Soon the sun-caress-
ing would be responded to by the bursting of
the buds, or the falling away of their ingenious
outer protecting scales, which dropped to the
ground, where, sticky and shining, and ex-
traordinarily aromatic in odor, they were just
what a curious school-boy enjoyed investigating.
“Balm of Gilead” was the name that inquiry
brought for this tree, and the resinous and
sweet-smelling buds which preceded the rather
inconspicuous catkins or aments of bloom
seemed to justify the Biblical designation.
Nearly a world tree is this poplar, which in
some one of its variable forms is called also
tacamahac, and balsam poplar as well. Its
cheerful upright habit, really fine leaves and
generally pleasing air commend it, but there
is one trouble—it is almost too wigorous and
anxious to spread, which it does by means of
shoots or “suckers,” upspringing from its wide
area of root- growth, thus starting a little forest
of its own that gives other trees but small

120

RIEEROMS AND POPLARS

chance. But on a street, where the repression
of pavements and sidewalks interferes with this
exuberance, the balsam poplar is well worth
planting.

The poplars as a family are pushing and
energetic growers, and serve a great purpose
in the reforestation of American acres that have
been carelessly denuded of their tree cover.
Here the trembling aspen particularly, as the
commonest form of all is named, comes in to
quickly cover and shade the ground, and give
aid to the hard woods and the conifers that
form the value of the forest growth.

This same American aspen, a consideration
of the lightly hung leaves of which has been
useful to many poets, is a well-known tree
of graceful habit, particularly abundant in the
forests north of Pennsylvania and New Jersey,
and occupying clearings plentifully and quickly.
esfowers are in. catkins, as with the rest of
the family, and, like other poplars, they are in
two kinds, male and female, or staminate and
pistillate, which accounts for some troubles the
inexperienced investigator has in locating them.

There is another aspen, the large-toothed

12 1

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

form, that is a distinct botanical species; but
I have never been able to separate it, where-
fore I do not try to tell of it ‘here, lest ae
under condemnation as a blind leader, not of
the blind, but of those who would see!

In many cities, especially in cities that have
experienced real-estate booms, and have had
“extensions” laid out “complete with ailgae
provements,” there is to be seen a poplar that
has the merit of quick and pleasing growth
and considerable elegance as well. Alas, it is
like the children-of the tropics in quick beauty
and quick decadence! The Carolina poplar, it
is called, being a variety of the widespread
cottonwood. Grow? All that is needed is to
cut a lusty branch of it, point it, and drive it
into the earth—it will do the rest!

This means cheap trees and quick growth,
and that is why whole new streets in West
Philadelphia, for instance, are given up to the
Carolina poplar. Its clear, green, shining leaves,
of good size, coming early in spring; its easily
guided habit, either upright or spreading; its
very rapid growth, all commend it. But its
coarseness and lack of real strength, and its

E22

a

oe eta Chess eS

ace ENGR tri

The Carolina poplar as a street tree

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

continual invitation to the tree-butcher and the
electric lineman, indicate the undesirability of
giving it more than a temporary position, to
shade while better trees are growing.

But I must not get into the economics of
street-tree planting. I started to tell Givetme
blossoms of this same Carolina poplar, which
are decidedly interesting. Just when the sun
has thoroughly warmed up the air of spring
there is a sudden, rapid thickening of buds over
one’s head on this poplar. One year the tree
under my observation swelled and _ swelled its
buds, which were shining more and more in
the sun, until I was sure the next day would
bring a burst of leaves. But the weather was
dry, and it was not until that wonderful solvent
and accelerator of growing things, a warm
spring rain, fell softly upon the tree, that the
pent-up life force was given vent. Then came,
not leaves, but these long catkins, springing
out with great rapidity, until ina few hours
the tree glowed with their redness. A second
edition of the shower, falling sharply, brought
many of the catkins to the ground, where
they lay about like large caterpillars.

124

Pim Ones AND POPLARS

The whole process of this blooming was
interesting, curious, but hardly beautiful, and it
seemed to fit in with the restless character of
the poplar family—a family of trees with more
vigor than dignity, more sprightliness than
grace. As Professor Bailey says of the cotton-
wood, “ft is cheerful and restive. One is not
moved to lie under it as he is under a maple
Span oak.” Yet there are not wanting some
poplars of impressive character.

One occurs to me, growing on a wide street
of my home town, opposite a church with a
graceful spire. This white or silver-leaved pop-
lar has for many years been a regular prey of
the gang of tree-trimmers, utterly without
knowledge of or regard for trees, that infests
this town. They hack it shamefully, and I
look at it and say, “Well, the old poplar is
ruined now, surely!” But a season passes, and
I look again, to see that the tremendous vigor
of the tree has triumphed over the butchers;
its sores have been concealed, new limbs have
pushed out, and it has again, in its unusual
height, assumed a dignity not a whit inferior
to that of the church spire opposite.

oss

Winter aspect of the cottonwood tree

WE LOWS AND POPLARS

This white poplar is at its best on the bank
of a stream, where its small forest of “suck-

ers”

most efhciently protects the slope against
the destructive action of floods. One such tree
with its family and friends I saw in full bloom
along the Susquehanna, and it gave an impres-
sion of solidity and size, as well as of lusty
vigor, and [ have always liked it since. The
cheerful bark is not the least of its attractions—
but it is a tree for its own’ place, and not: for
every place, by reason of the tremendous
colonizing power of its root-sprouts.

I wonder, by the way, if many realize the
persistence and vigor of the roots of a tree of
Ove “suckering” habit? Some years ago an
ailanthus, a tree of vigor and beauty of foliage
but nastiness of flower odor, was cut away
from its home when excavation was being
made for a building, which gave me _ oppor-
tunity to follow a few of its roots. One of
them traveled in search of food, and toward
the opportunity of sending up a shoot, over a
hundred feet!

The impending scarcity of spruce logs to
feed the hungry maws of the machines that

127

GETTING. ACQUAINTED WifH THE TREES

make paper for our daily journals has turned
attention to several forms of the rapid - growing
poplar for this use. The aspen is acceptable,
and also the Carolina poplar, and these trees
are being planted in large quantities for the
eventual making of wood-pulp. Even today,
many newspapers are printed on poplar, and
exposure to the rays of the truth-searching
sun for a few hours will disclose the yellow-
ness of the paper, if not of the treé trom
which it has been ground.

Few whose eyes are turned upward toward
the trees have failed to note that exclamation-
point of growth, the Lombardy poplar. Origi-
nating in that portion of Europe indicated by
its common name, and, indeed, a_ botanical
form of the European black poplar, it is nev-
ertheless widely distributed in America. When
it has been properly placed, it introduces truly
a note of distinction into the landscape. Tow-
ering high in the air, and carrying the eye
along its narrowly oval contour to a skyward
point, it is lofty and pleasing in a park. It
agreeably breaks the sky-line in many places,
and is emphatic in dignified groups. To plant it

128

PLELEGHS AND POPLARS

Lombardy poplar

in rows is wrong; and I say
this as an innocent offender
myself. In boyhood I lived
along the banks of the broad
but shallow Susquehanna,
and enjoyed the boating pos-
sible upon that stream when
it was not reduced, as graph-
ically described by a dis-
gusted riverman, to merely
a heavy dew. Many times I
lost my way returning to the
steep bluff near my home
after the sun had gone to
rest, and a hard pull against
the swift current would en-
sue as I skirted the bank,
straining eyes for landmarks
in the dusk. It occurred to
me to plant six Lombardy
poplars on the top of the
bluff, which might serve as
easily recognized landmarks.
Four of them grew, and are
now large trees, somewhat

129

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

offensive to a quickened sense of appropriate-
ness. Long since the old home has been swal-
lowed up by the city’s advance, and I suppose
none who now see those four spires of green
on the river-bank even guess at the reason for
their existence.

The poplar family, as a whole, is exuberant
with vigor, and interesting more on that account
than by reason of its general dignity or strength
or elegance. It is well worth a little attention
and study, and the consideration particularly of
its bloom periods, to which I commend the
tree-sense of my readers as they take the tree
walks that ought to punctuate these chapters.

130

The Elm and the Tulip

MERICA has much that is unique in
A plant. and_tree growth, as one learns
who sees first the collections of Amer-
ican plants shown with pride by acute garden-
ers and estate owners in England and on the
European Continent. Many a citizen of our
country must needs confess with some shame
that his first estimation of the singular beauty
of \the- American laurel has been born in
England, where the imported plants are care-
fully nurtured;-and)the European to whom the
trhododendrons of his»own country and of the
Himalayas are familiar is ready to exclaim in
rapture at the superb effect and tropical rich-
ness of our American’ species, far more _ lusty
and more truly beautiful here than the intro-
ductions which must be heavily paid for and
constantly coddled.
For no trees, however, may Americans feel
more pride.than for our American elms and

Le,

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

our no less American tulip, the latter miscalled
tulip “poplar.” Both are trees practically unique
to the country, both are widespread over East-
ern North America, both are thoroughly trees
of the people, both attain majestic propor-
tions, both are long-lived and able to endure
much hardship without a full giving up of
either beauty or dignity.

The American elm—how shall I properly
speak of its exceeding grace and beauty! In
any landscape it introduces an element of dis-
tinction and elegance not given by any other
tree. Looking across a field at a cluster of
trees, there may be a doubt as to the identity
of an oak, a chestnut, a maple, an ash, but
no mistake can be made in regard to an elm—
it stands alone in the simple elegance of its
vase-like form, while its feathery branchlets,
waving in the lightest breeze, add to the
refined and classic effect. 1 use the (ware
“classic” advisedly, because, although apparently
out of place in describing a tree, it mever-
theless seems needed for the form of the
American elm.

The elm is never rugged as 48) ie peene

134

Rea AND THE TULIP

but it gives no impression of effeminacy or
weakness. Its uprightness is forceful and strong,
and its clean and shapely bole impresses the
beholder as a joining of gently outcurving
columns, ample in strength and of an elegance
Belonging to itself: alone. If I may dare to
compare man-made architectural forms with
Bie trees that graced the garden of Eden, I
would liken the American elm (it is also the
water elm and the white elm, and _botanically
Ulmus Americana) to the Grecian types, com-
bining stability with elegance, rather than to
the more rugged works of the Goths. Yet
the free swing of the elm’s wide-spreading
branches inevitably suggests the pointed Gothic
arch in simplicity and obvious strength.

It is difficult to say when the American
elm is most worthy of admiration. In sum-
mer those same arching branches are clothed
and tipped with foliage of such elegance and
delicacy as the form of the tree would seem
femepredicate. The leaf ‘itself is ornate, its
straight ribs making up a serrated and pointed
oval form of the most interesting character.
These leaves hang by slender stems, inviting

oe)

A mature American elm

Cpe ea NO THE TU LI P

the gentlest zephyr to start them to singing of
comfort in days of summer heat. The elm is
fully clothed down to the drooping tips of the
branchlets with foliage, which, though deepest
green above, reflects, under its dense shade,
a soft light from the paler green of the lower
side. It is no wonder that New England
Gaus tame for her elms, which, loved and
area for, arch over the long village streets
mia eive Gharacter to the homes of -the
descendants of the Puritan fathers. The fully
grown elm presents to the sun a darkly ab-
sorbent hue, and to the passer-by who rests
beneath its shade the most grateful and restful
color in all the rainbow’s palette.

Then, too, the evaporative power of these
same leaves is simply enormous, and generally
undreamed of. Who would think that a great,
spreading elm, reaching into the air of August
weaundred feet, and shading-a circle of: nearly
as great diameter, was daily cooling the atmos-
phere with tons of water, silently drawn from
the bosom of Mother Earth!

Like many other common trees, the Amer-
ican elm blooms almost unnoticed. When the

oOy,

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREE®

silver maple bravely pushes out its hardy buds
in earliest spring—or often in what might be
called latest winter—the elm is ready, and the
sudden swelling of the twigs, away above our
heads in March or April, is not causedgay
the springing leaves, but is the flowering effort
of this noble tree. The bloom sets curiously
about the yet bare branches, and the little
brownish yellow or reddish flowers are seem-
ingly only a bunch of stamens. They do
their work promptly, and the little flat fruits,
or “samaras,” are ripened and droppedaepe-
fore most of us realize that the spring is
fully upon us. These seeds germinate readily,
and I recall the great pleasure with which a
noted horticultural professor showed me what
he called his “elm lawn,” one stnmmenaae
seemed that almost every one of the thousands
of seeds that, just about the time his prepara-
tions for sowing a lawn were completed, had
softly. fallen from the great elm which guards
and shades his door-yard, had found good
ground, and the result was a miniature forest
of tiny trees, giving an effect of solid green
which was truly a tree lawn.
138

~ e ,

J ~ wt .
Sl Se

The delicate tracery of the American elm in winter

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

But, after all, I think it is in winter that
the American elm is at its finest, for “them
stand forth most fully revealed the wonderful
symmetry of its structure and the elegance of
its lines. It has one advantage in i1t8 roan
size, which is well above the average, for it
lifts its graceful head a hundred feet or more
above the earth. The stem is usually “Gheam
and regular, and the branches spread out in
closely symmetrical relation, so that, as seen
against the cold sky of winter, leafless and
bare, they seem all related parts of “aimmom
harmonious whole. Other’ great trees are
notable for the general effect of strength or
massiveness, individual branches departing much
from the average line of the whole structure;
but the American elm is regulat im) aie
parts, as well as of general stateliness.

As I have noted, the people of the New
England States value and cherish their great
elms, and they are accustomed to think them-
selves the only possessors of this unique tree.
We have, however, as good elms in Pennsyl-
vania as there are in New England, (ange
hope the day is not far distant when we shall

140

TREE EM AND THE TULIP

esteem them as highly. The old elm monarch
which stands at the gingerbread brownstone
entrance of the Capitol Park in Pennsylvania’s
seat of government has. had a hard battle,
defenseless as it is, against the indifference of
those whom it has shaded for generations, and
who carelessly permitted the telegraph and
telephone linemen to use it or chop it at their
will. But latterly there has been an awakening
which means protection, I think, for this fine
old landmark.

The two superb elms, known as “Paul and
Virginia,” that make notable the north shore
of the Susquehanna at Wilkesbarre, are subjects
of local pride; which seems, however, not
strong enough to prevent the erection of a
couple of nasty little shanties against their great
munmks. There can be no doubt, however,
that the sentiment of reverence for great trees,
and «Of justice to them for their beneficent
influence, is spreading westward and_ south-
ward from New England. It gives me keen
pleasure to learn of instances where paths,
pavements or roadways have been changed, to
avoid doing violence to good trees; and a

141

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH. THE TREES

recent account of the creation of a trust fund
for the care of a great. ‘oak, as~ well jae
unique instance in Georgia, where a deed has
been recorded giving a fine elm a quasi-legal
title to its own ground, show that the rights
of trees are coming to be recognized.

I have said little of the habitat, aeigeue
botanist puts it, of the American Sige
graces all North America east of the Rockies,
and the specimens one sees in Michigan or
Canada are as happy, apparently, as if they
grew in Connecticut or in Virginia. Our
increasingly beautiful national Capital, the one
city with an intelligent and controlled system
of tree-planting, shows magnificent avenues of
flourishing elms.

But I must not forget some other elms,
beautiful and satisfactory in many places. It
is no discredit to our own American elm to
say that the English. elm 1s a. supérp)tmee
in America. It seems to be characteristically
British in its sturdy habit, and forms a grand
trunk.

The juicy inner bark of the red or “slip-

pery” elm was always acceptable, in lieu of the

142

The English elm in winter

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TKEee

chewing- gum which had not then become so
common, to a certain ever-hungry boy who
_used to think as much of what a tree would
furnish that was eatable as he now does of its.
beauty. Later, the other uses of the bark of
this tree became known to the same boy, but
it was many years before he came really to
know the slippery elm: One day a ites
branch overhead showed what seemed to be
remarkable little green flowers, which on
examination proved to be, instead, the very
interesting fruit of this elm, each little seed
securely held inside a very neat and small flat
bag. Looking at it earlier the next spring,
the conspicuous reddish brown color of the
bud-scales was noted.

I have never seen the “wahoo,” or winged
elm of the South, and there are several other
native elms, as well as a number of introduc-
tions from the Eastern Hemisphere, with
which acquaintance is yet to bemmade. All
of them together, I will maintain with the
quixotic enthusiasm of lack of knowledge, are
not worth as much as one-half hour spent
in looking up under the leafy canopy of our

144

Pra koM AND THE TULIP

own preéminent American elm—a tree surely
among those given by the Creator for the
healing of the nations.

The tulip-tree, so called obviously because
of the shape of its flowers, has a most moellif-
luous and pleasing botanical name, Liriodendron
Tulipifera—is not that euphonious? Just plain
“liriodendron” — how much better that sounds
as a designation for one of the noblest of
American forest trees than the misleading
fcommon” names! “Tulip-tree,” fot a resem-
blance of the form only of its extraordinary
blooms; “yellow poplar,” probably because it
is not yellow, and is in no way related to the
poplars; and “whitewood,” the Western name,
because its wood is whiter than that of some
other native trees. “Liriodendron” translated
means “lily-tree,” says my learned friend who
knows Greek, and that is a fitting designation
for this tree, which proudly holds forth its
flowers, as notable and beautiful as any lily, and
far more dignified and refined than the gaudy
tulip. I like to repeat this smooth-sounding,
truly descriptive and dignified name for a tree
worthy all admiration. Liriodendron! Away

145

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

with the “common” names, when there is such
a pleasing scientific cognomen available!

By the way, why should people who will
twist their American tongues all awry in an
attempt to pronounce French words in which
the necessary snort is unexpressed visually and
half the characters are “silent,” mostly exclaim
at the alleged difficulty of calling trees and
plants by their world names, current among
educated people everywhere, while preferring
some misleading “common” name? Very few
scientific plant mames are as difficult to
pronounce as is the word “chrysanthemum,”
and yet the latter comes as glibly from the
tongue as do “geranium,” “rhododendron,”
and the like. Let us, then, at least when we
have as good a name as liriodendron for so
good a tree, use it in preference to the most
decidedly “common” names that belie and
mislead.

I have said that this same, tulip-tree—
which I will call liriodendron hereafter, at a
venture —is a notable American tree, peculiar
to this country. So believed the botanists for
many years, until an inquiring investigator

146

hit Pie AND THE TULIP

found that China, too,-had the same* tree, in
a limited way. We will still claim it as an
American native, and tell the Chinamen they
are fortunate to have such a superb tree in
their little-known forests. They have undoubt-
edly taken advantage, in their art forms, of
its peculiarly shaped leaves, if not of the
flowers and the curious “candlesticks” that
succeed them.

Let us consider this liriodendron first as a
forest tree, as an inhabitant of the “great
woods” that awed the first intelligent observers
from Europe, many generations back. Few of
our native trees reach such a majestic height,
here on the eastern side of the continent, its
habitat. Ordinarily it builds its harmonious
structure to a height of seventy or a hundred
feet; but occasional individuals double this alti-
fade, and reach a trunk diameter of ten ‘feet.
While in the close forest it towers up with a
smooth, clean bole, in open places it assumes
its naturally somewhat conical form very
promptly. Utterly dissimilar in form from the
American elm, it seems to stand for dignity,
solidity and vigor, and yet to yield nothing in

147

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

—
oy

a5

[ee

3

ay

— eyebiee:s

Winter effect of tulip trees

the way of true ele-
gance. The botanists
tell us it prefers deep
and moist soil, but I
know that it lives and
seems happy in many
soils and in many
places. Always and
everywhere it shows a
clean, distinct trunk,
its brown bark uni-
formly furrowed, but
in such a mane
as to give a nearly
smooth appearance at
a little distance. The
branches do not leave
the stem so imper-
ceptibly as do those
which give the elm its
very distinct form, but
rather start at a right
angle, leaving the dis-
tinct central column
of solid strength un-

Pie eh AND THE TULIP

impaired. The winter tracery of these branches,
and the whole effect of the liriodendron without
foliage, is extremely distinct and pleasing. I have
in mind a noble group of great liriodendrons
which I first saw against an early April sky of
blue and white. The trees had grown close, and
had interlaced their somewhat twisty branches,
so that the general impression was that of one
great tree supported on several stems. The pure
beauty of these very tall and very stately trees,
thus grouped and with every twig sharply out-
lined, I shall always remember.

The liriodendron is more fortunate than
some other trees, for it has several points of
attractiveness. Its stature and its structure are
alike notable, its foliage entirely unique, and
its flowers and seed-pods even more _ interest-
me. The leaf is very easily recognized when
mace known: It ‘is large, but not in any
way coarse, and is thrust forth as the tree
grows, in a peculiarly pleasing way. Sheathed
in the manner characteristic of the magnolia
family, of which the liriodendron is a notable
member, the leaves come to the light prac-
tically folded back on themselves, between

149

A great liriodendron in bloom

PEE ERM AND THE TULIP

the two protecting envelopes, which remain
until the leaf has stretched out smoothly.
Yellowish green at first, they rapidly take on
the bright, strong green of maturity. The
texture is singularly refined, and it is a _pleas-
ure to handle these smooth leaves, of a shape
which stamps them at once on the memory,
and of a coloring, both above and below, that
is most attractive. They are maintained on
long, slender stems, or “petioles,” and these
stems give a great range of flexibility, so that
the leaves of the liriodendron are, as Henry
Ward Beecher puts it, “intensely individual,
each one moving to suit himself.”

Of course all this moving, and this out-
breaking of the leaves from their envelopes,
take place far above one’s head, on mature
trees. It will be found well worth while, how-
ever, for the tree-lover to look in the woods
for the rather numerous young trees of the
tulip, and to observe the very interesting way
in which the growth proceeds. The beautiful
form and color of the leaves may also be
thus conveniently noted, as also in the autumn
the soft, clear yellow early assumed.

bea

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

It is the height and spread of the lirioden-
dron that keep its truly wonderful flowers out
of the public eye. If they were produced on
a small tree like the familiar dogwood, for
instance, so that they might be nearer to the
ground, they would receive more of the admi-
ration so fully their due. In Washington,
where, as-I have said, trees -are plantemeume
design and not at random, there are whole
avenues of liriodendrons, and it was my good
fortune one May to drive between these lines
of strong and shapely young trees just when
they were in full bloom. The appearance of
these beautiful cups, each one held upright,
not drooping, was most striking and elegant.
Some time, other municipalities will learn wis-
dom from the example set in Washington, and
we may expect to see some variety in sour
street trees, now monotonously confined for
the most part to the maples, poplars, and a
few good trees that would be more valued if
interspersed with other equally good trees of
different character. The pin-oak, the elm, the
sweet-gum, or liquidambar, the ginkgo, and
a half-dozen or more beautiful and sturdy

pea

Flowers of the liriodendron

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

trees, do admirably for street planting, and
ought to be better known and much more
freely used.

I have seen many rare orchids brought
thousands of miles and petted into a curious
bloom—indeed, often more curious than beau-
tiful. If the bloom of the liriodendronjaim
all its delicate and daring mingling of green
and yellow, cream and orange, with its exqui-
site interior filaments, could be labeled as a
ten-thousand-dollar orchid beauty from Bor-
neo, its delicious perfume would hardly be
needed to complete the raptures with which it
would be received into fashionable flower soci-
ety. But these lovely cups stand every spring
above our heads by millions, their fragrance
and form, their color and beauty, unnoticed
by the throng. As they mature into the
brown fruit-cones that hold the seeds, and
these in turn fall to the ground, to fulfil their
purpose of reproduction, there is no week in
which the tree is not worthy of attention;
and, when the last golden leaf has been
plucked by the fingers of the winter’s frost,
there yet remain on the bare branches the

154

TREE MamoAN DY DAR TULIP

curious and interesting candlestick-like outer
envelopes of the fruit-cones, to remind us in
form of the wonderful flower, unique in_ its
color and attractiveness, that gave its sweetness
to the air of May and June.

These two trees—the elm and the lirioden-
dron—stand out strongly as individuals in the
wealth of our American trees. Let all who
Fead and apree in my estimate, even in part,
also agree to try, when opportunity offers,
to preserve these trees from vandalism or
Heplect, realizing that the great forest trees
of our country are impossible of replacement,
and that their strength, majesty and _ beauty
are for the good of all.

155

wae et
~ pe mei 2 OF Fy

/~ut-Wearing Trees

HAT memories of, chestnutting parties,
fesof fingers stained with the dye of wal-
nut ‘hulls, and of joyous tramps afield

in the very heart of thejyear, come to many
of us when we think of the nuts of familiar
knowledge! MHickory-nuts and butternuts, too,
perhaps hazelnuts and even beechnuts—all
Pnese@erimerica@, boys, and girls of the real
country know. In the far South, and, indeed,
reaching well up into the Middle West, the
pecan holds sway, and a majestic sway at that,
fog its: size makes it the fellow of the great
trees of the forest, worthy to be compared with
the chestnut, the walnut, and the hickory.

But it has usually been of nuts to eat that
we have thought, and the chance for palatable
food has, just as with some of the best of the
so-called “fruit” trees—all trees bear fruit !—
partially closed our eyes to the interest and
beauty of some of these nut- bearers.

Fo

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE VTREES

My own tree acquaintance has proceeded
none too rapidly, and I have been—and am
yet—as fond of the toothsome nuts as any one
can be who is not a devotee of the new fad
that attempts to make human squirrels of us
all by a nearly exclusive nut diet. I think
that my regard for a nut tree as something
else than a source of things to eat began when
I came, one hot summer day, under the shade
of the great walnut at Paxtang. Huge was
its trunk and wide the spread of its branches,
while the richness of its foliage held at bay
the strongest rays of the great luminary. How
could I help admiring the venerable yet lusty
old tree, conferring a present benefit, giving
an instant and restful impression of strength,
solidity, and elegance, while promising as well,
as its rounded green clusters hung far above
my head, a great crop of delicious nut- fruit
when the summer’s sun it was so fully absorb-
ing should have done its perfect work!

Alas for the great black walnut of Paxtang!
It went the way of many another tree monarch
whose beauty and living usefulness were no
defense against sordid vandalism. In the course

160

NUT-BEARING TREES

of time a suburb was laid out, including along
its principal street, and certainly as its principal
natural ornament, this massive tree, around
which the Indians who roamed the “great vale
of Pennsylvania” had probably gathered in
couneil. ~The sixty-foot “lot,” the. front of
which the tree graced, fell to the ownership of
a man who, erecting a house under its benefi-
cent protection, soon complained of its shade.
Then came a lumber prospector, who saw only
furniture in the still flourishing old black
walnut. His offer of forty dollars for the tree
was eagerly accepted by the Philistine who had
the title to the land, and although there were
not wanting such remonstrances as almost came
to a breaking of the peace, the grand walnut
ended its hundreds of years of life to become
mere lumber for its destroyers! The real
estate man who sold the land greatly admired
the tree himself, realizing also its great value
to the suburb, and had never for one moment
dreamed that the potential vandal who bought
the tree-graced parcel of ground would not
respect the inherent rights of all his neighbors.
He told me of the loss with tears in his eyes
161

ynueM yorlq Surpeaids-aptm oy 7

NUT-BEARING TREES

and rage in his language; and I have never
looked since at the fellow who did the deed
without reprobation. More than that, he has
proven a theory I hold—that no really good
man would do such a thing after he had been
shown the wrong of it—by showing himself as
dishonest in business as he was disregardful of
the rights of the tree and of his neighbors.
The black walnut is a grand tree from any
point of view, even though it so fully absorbs
all water and fertility as to check other growth
under its great reach of branches. The lines
it presents to the winter sky are as rugged as
those of the oak, but there is a great differ-
ence. And this ruggedness is held far into the
spring, for the black walnut makes no slightest
apparent effort at growth until all the other
trees are greening the countryside. Then with
a rush come the luxuriant and tropical com-
pound leaves, soon attaining their full dignity,
and adding to it also a smooth polish on the
upper surface. The walnut’s flowers I have
missed seeing, I am sorry to say, while regis-
tering a mental promise not to permit another
season to pass without having that pleasure.
163

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

Late in the year the foliage has ‘become
scanty, and the nut-clusters hang fascinatingly
clear, far above one’s head, to tempt the climb
and the club. The black walnut is a tree that
needs our care; for furniture fashion long used
its close-grained, heavy, handsome wood as
cruelly as the milliners did the herons of
Florida from which were torn the “aigrets,”
now happily “out of style.” Though walnut
furniture is no longer the most popular, the
deadly work has been done, for the most part,
and but few of these wide-spread old forest
monarchs yet remain. Scientific forestry is now
providing, in many plantings, and in many
places, another “crop” of . walnut “timber,
grown to order, and using waste land. It is
to such really beneficent, though entirely com-
mercial work, that we must look for the future
of many of our best trees.

The butternut, or white walnut, has never
seemed so interesting to me, nor its fruit so
palatable, probably because I have seen less of
it. The so-called “English” walnut, which is
really the Persian walnut, is not hardy in the
eastern part of the United States, and, while

164

A
aS

(Oa
Bele

B

ke
i 2

ck Se
j

. Pr "4
= i ies
Zp

The American sweet chestnut

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE’ TREES

a tree of vast commercial importance in the
far West, does not come much into the view
of a lover of the purely American trees.

Of the American sweet chestnut as a delight-
ful nut-fruit I need say nothing more than
that it fully holds its place against “foreign
_ intervention” from the East; even though these
European and Japanese chesnuts with their
California- bred progeny give us fruit that is
much larger, and borne on trees of very
graceful habit. No one with discrimination
will for a moment hesitate, after eating a nut
of both, to cheerfully choose the American
native as best worth his commendation, though
he may come to understand the food value,
after cooking, of the chestnuts used so freely
in parts of Europe.

As a forest tree, however, our American
sweet chestnut has a place of its own. Nat-
urally spreading in habit when growing where
there is room to expand, it easily accommo-
dates itself to the more cramped conditions of
our great woodlands, and shoots upward to
light and air, making rapidly a clean and
sturdy stem. What a beautiful and stately tree

166

Sweet chestnut blossoms

iis!) “And when, laté in -the spring, or
indeed right on the threshold of summer, its
blooming time comes, it stands out distinctly,
having then few rivals in the eye of the tree-
lover. The locust and the tulip are just about
done with their floral offering upon the altar
of the year when the long creamy catkins of
the sweet chestnut spring out from the fully
perfected dark green leaf-clusters. Peculiarly
graceful are these great bloom heads, high in
eae. air, and standing nearly erect, instead of
hanging down as do the catkins of the pop-
lars and the birches. The odor of the chest-
nut flower is heavy, and is best appreciated far
167

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

above in the great tree, where it may mingle
with the warm air of June, already bearing a
hundred sweet scents.

There stands bright in my remembrance
one golden June day when I came through a
gateway into a wonderful American’ garden
of purely native plants maintained near Phila-
delphia, the rock-bound drive guarded by two
clumps of tall chestnuts, one on either side,
and both in full glory of bloom. There could
not have been a more beautiful, natural, or
dignified entrance; and it was just as beautiful
in the early fall, when the deep green of the
oblong-toothed leaves had changed to clear
and glowing yellow, while the flowers had left
their perfect work in the swelling and prickly
green burs which hid nuts of a_ brown as
rich as the flesh was sweet.

Did you, gentle reader, ever saunter through
a chestnut grove in the later fall, when the
yellow had been browned by the,frosts which
brought to the ground alike leaves and remain-
ing burs? There is something especially pleas-
ant in the warmth of color and the crackle of
sound on the forest floor, as one really shufHes

168

NWUP-BEARING TREES

through chestnut leaves in the bracing Novem-
ber air, stooping now and then for a _ nut
perchance remaining in the warm and velvety
corner of an opened bur.

Here in Pennsylvania, and south of Mason
and.) Dixon's line, there grows .a delightful
emall tree, brother to the chestnut,' bearing
especially sweet little nuts which we know as
chinquapins. They are darker brown, and the
Micah 1S “yery . white; and rich im flavor. I
could wish that the chinquapin, as well as the
chestnut, was included among the trees that
enlightened Americans would plant along road-
sides. and lanes,-with other fruit trees; the
specific secondary purpose, after the primary
enjoyment of form, foliage and flower, being
to let the future passer-by eat freely of that
fruit provided by the Creator for food and
pleasure, and costing no more trouble or
expense than the purely ornamental trees more
frequently planted.

Both chestnut and chinquapin are beautiful
Ornamental trees; and some of the newer
chestnut hybrids, of parentage between the
American and the European species, are as

169

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

graceful as the most highly petted lawn trees
of the nurserymen. Indeed, the very jsame
claim may be made for a score or imonemeee
the standard fruit trees, alike beautiful in limb
tracery, in bloom, and in the _ seed- coverings
that we are glad to eat; and some titteugye

The chinquapin

170

NUT-BEARING TREES

shall be ashamed not to plant the fruit trees
in public places, for the pleasure and the
refreshing of all who care.

One of the commonest nut trees, and cer-
tainly one of the most pleasing, is the hickory.
There are hickories and hickories, and some
are shellbarks, while others are bitternuts or
pignuts. The form most familiar to the East-
ern States is the shagbark hickory, and _ its
characteristic upright trees, tall and _ finely
shaped, never wide-spreading as is the chest-
nut under the encouragement of plenty of
room and food, are admirable from any stand-
pemt. Ehere «is*a- lusty old ~shagbark . in
Wetzel’s Swamp that has given me many a
pleasant quarter-hour, as I have stood at
attention before its symmetrical stem, hung
with slabs of brown bark that seem always
just ready to separate from the trunk.

The aspect of this tree is reflected in its
very useful timber, which is pliant but tough,
requiring less “heft” for a given strength, and
bending with a load easily, only to instantly
snap back to its position when tthe stress
slackens. Good hickory is said to be stronger

171

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

than wrought iron, weight for weight; and I
will answer for it that no structure of iron
can ever have half the race, “as “ele
strength, freely displayed by this same old
shagbark of the lowlands near my home.

Curious as I am to see the blooms of the
trees I am_ getting acquainted with, there are
many disappointments to be endured—as when
the favorite tree under study is reached a day
too late, and I must wait a year for another
opportunity. It was, therefore, with much joy
that I found that a trip carefully timed for
another fine old hickory along the Conodo-
guinet—-an Indian-named_ stream of angles,
curves, many trees and much_ beauty —had
brought me to the quickly passing bloom
feast of thisenoble American tree. "The feaves
were about half-grown and half-colored, which
means that they displayed an elegance of tex-
ture and hue most pleasing to see. And the
flowers—there they were, hanging under the
twigs in long clusters of what I might describe
as ends of chenille, if it were not irreverent to
compare these delicate greenish catkins with
anything man-made!

LGz

1s
y
es
ie

sae OH 8

A shagbark hickory in bloom

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

This fine shagbark was kind to the camera-
man, for some of its lower branches drooped
and hung down close enough to the “bars”
of the rail fence to permit the photographic
eye to be turned on them. Then camevime
tantalizing wait for stillness! I have frequently
found that a wind, absolutely unnoticeable be-
fore, became obtrusively strong just when the
critical moment arrived, and I have fancied
that the lightly hung leaflets I have waited
upon fairly shook with merriment as_ they
received the gentle zephyr, imperceptible to
my heated brow, but vigorous enough to keep
them moving. Often, too—indeed nearly always
—I have found that after exhausting my all
too scanty stock of patience, and making an
“exposure” in despair, the errant blossoms
and leaflets would settle down into perfect
immobility, as if to say, “There! don’t be
cross—we’ll behave,” when it was too late.

But the shagbark at last was good to me,
and I could leave with the comfortable feeling
that I was carrying away a little bit of nature’s
special work, a memorandum of her rather
private processes of fruit- making, without injur-

174

NUT-BEARING TREES

me any part of the inspected trees. “et has
been a sorrow to me that I have not seen
that great hickory later in the year, when the
clusters of tassels have become bunches of
husk-covered nuts. To get really acquainted
with any tree, it should be visited many times
in a year. Starting with the winter view, one
observes the bark, the trend and character of
the limbs, the condition of the buds. The
spring opening of growth brings rapid changes,
of both interest and beauty, to be succeeded
by the maturity of summer, when, with the
ripened foliage overhead, everything is differ-
cae Awan, when the ‘fruit is on, and the
touch of Jack Frost is baring the tree for the
smoother passing of the winds of winter, there
ipeanotner aspect. [ have great respect -for
the tree-lover who knows unerringly his favo-
Mires at any time of the year, for have I not
myself made many mistakes, especially when no
leaves are at hand as pointers? The snow
leaves nothing to be seen but the cunning
framework of the tree—tell me, then, is it
ash, or elm, or beech? Which is sugar-maple,
and which red, or sycamore?

E75

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

One summer walk in the deep forest, my
friend the doctor, who knows many things
besides the human frame, was puzzled at a
sturdy tree bole, whose leaves far overhead
mingled so closely with the neighboring green-
ery of beech and birch that in the dim light
they gave no help. First driving the small
blade of his pocket-knife deep into the rugged
bark of the tree in question, he withdrew
it, and then smelled and tasted, exclaiming,
“Ah, I thought so; it # the wild "enemas
And, truly, the characteristic prussic-acid odor,
the bitter taste, belonging to the peach and
cherry families, were readily noted; and another
Sherlock Holmes tree fact came to me!

Of other hickories I know little, for the
false shagbark, the mockernut, the pignut,
and the rest of the family have not been dis-
closed to me often enough to put me at ease
with them. There are to be more tree friends,
both human and arborescent, and, more walks
with the doctor and the camera, I hope!

We of the cold North, as we crack the
toothsome pecan, hardly realize its kinship
with the hickory. It is full brother to our

176

in winter

The American beech

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

shellbark, which is, according to botany, Hicoria
ovata, while the Southern tree is Hicoria pecan.
A superb tree it is, too, reaching up amid its
vigorous associates of the forests of Georgia,
Alabama and Texas to a height exceeding one
hundred and fifty feet. Its upright and ele-
gant form, of a grace that conceals its great
height, its remarkable usefulness, and its rather
rapid growth, commend it highly. The nut-
clusters are striking, having not only an inter-
esting outline, but much richness of color, in
greens and russets.

It may seem odd to include the beech
under the nut-bearing trees, to those of us
who know only the nursery- grown forms of
the European beech, “weeping” and _ twisted,
with leaves of copper and blood, as seen in
parks and pleasure-grounds. But the squirrels
would agree; they know well the sweet little
triangular nuts that ripen early in fall.

The pure American beech, uncontaminated
and untwisted with the abnormal forms just
mentioned, is a tree that keeps itself well in
the eye of the woods rambler; and that eye is
always pleasured by it, also. Late in winter, the

178

NUT-REARING TREES

The true nut-eater

light gray branches of a beech
thicket on a dry hillside on the
edge of my home city called at-
tention to their clean elegance
amid sordid and forbidding sur-
roundings, and it was with anger
which I dare call righteous that
I saw a hideous bill-board erected
along the hillside, to shut out the
always beautiful beeches from
sight as I frequently passed on
a trolley car! I have carefully
avoided buying anything of the
merchants who have thus set up
their announcements where they
are, AN insult; and. it might. be
noted that these and other offen-
sive bill-boards are to others of
like mind a sort of reverse ad-
vertising —they tell us what not
to purchase.

Years ago I chanced to be pres-
en¢at 4 birth of beech: leaves, up
along Paxton Creek. It was late
in the afternoon, and our reluc-

£79

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TRE

tant feet were turning homeward, after the cam-
era had seen the windings of the creek against
the softening light, when the beeches over-
arching the little stream showed us this spring
marvel. The little but perfectly formed leaves
had just opened, in pairs, with a wonderful
covering of silvery green, as they hung down-
ward toward the water, yet too weak to stand
out and up to the passing breeze. The exqui-
site delicacy of these trembling little leaves, the
arching elegance of the branches that had just
opened them to the light, made it seem almost
sacrilegious to turn the lens upon them.
Often since have I visited the same spot, in
hope to see again this awakening, but without
avail. The leaves show me their silky com-
pleteness, rustling above the stream in softest
tree talk; the curious staminate flower - clusters
hang like bunches of inverted commas; the
neat little burs, with their inoffensive prickles,
mature and discharge the angular nuts—but I
am not’ again, I fear, to be present at the
hour of the leaf-birth of the beech’s year.
The beech, by the way, is tenacious of its
handsome foliage. Long after most trees have

180

NWUD-BEARING TREES

yielded their leaves to the
frost, the beech keeps its
clothing, turning from the
clear yellow of fall to light-
est fawn, and hanging out
oa, the forest: a. sign of
whiteness that is cheering
in the winter and earliest
spring. These bleached -
out leaves will often re-
main until fairly pushed off
by the opening buds of
another year.

Of the hazelnut or fil-
bert, I know nothing from
the tree side, but I cannot
avoid mentioning another
botanically unrelated so-
called hazel—the_ witch-
hazel. This small tree is
known to most of us only
as giving name to a cer-
tain soothing extract. It
is worthy of more atten-
tion. for its~ curiousand

181

The witch-hazel

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

delicately sweet yellow flowers, seemingly clus-
ters of lemon-colored threads, are the very last
to bloom, opening bravely in the very teeth of
Jack Frost. They are a delight to find, on the
late fall rambles; and the next season they are
followed by the still more curious fruits, which
have a habit of suddenly opening and _ fairly
ejaculating their seeds. A plucked branch of
these fruits, kept in a warm place a few hours,
will show this—another of nature’s efficient
methods for spreading seeds, in full operation —
if one watches closely enough. The flowers and
the fruits are on the tree at the same time, just
as with the orange of the tropics.

Speaking of a tropical fruit, I am reminded
that the greatest nut of all, though certainly ~
not an American native, is nevertheless now
grown on American soil. Some years ago a
grove of lofty cocoanut palms in Yucatan fas-
cinated me, and the opportunity to drink the
clear and refreshing milk (not milky at all,
and utterly different from the familiar contents
of the ripened nut of commerce) was gladly
taken. Now the bearing trees are within the
bounds of the United States proper, and the

182

NUT-BEARING TREES

grand trees in Southern Florida give plenty
of fruit. The African citizens of that neigh-
borhood are well aware of the refreshing char-
acter of the “juice” of the green cocoanut,
and a friend who sees things for me with a
camera tells with glee how a “darky” at
Palm Beach left him in, his wheel-chair to
run with simian feet up a sloping trunk, there
to pull, break open, and absorb the contents
of a nut, quite as a matter of course. I have
myself seen the Africans of the Bahamas in
the West Indies climbing the glorious cocoa
palms of the coral keys, throwing down the
mature nuts, and then, with strong teeth,
stripping the tough outer covering to get at
the refreshing interior.

All these nut trees are only members of
the great family ‘of trees given by God for
man’s good, I firmly believe; for man_ first
comes into Biblical view in a garden of trees,
and the city and the plain are but penances
for sin!

183

Sh/ ome Other
Trees

Some Dther Crees

N preceding chapters of this series I have
| treated of trees in a relationship of family,

or according “to some noted similarity.
There are,.-however, some trees of my acquain-
tance of which the family connections are
remote or unimportant, and there are some
other trees of individual merit with the fam-
ilies of which I am not sufficiently well ac-
quainted to speak familiarly as a whole. Yet
many of these trees, looked at by themselves,
are as beautiful, interesting, and altogether
worthy as any of which I have written, and
they are also among the familiar trees of
America. Therefore I present a few of them
apart from the class treatment.

One day in very early spring—or was it
very late in winter?—I walked along the old
canal road, looking for some evidence in tree
growth that spring was really at hand. Buds

187

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH. THE TREES

were swelling, and here and there a brave
robin could be heard telling about it in song
to his mate (I think that settled the season as
earliest spring!); but beyond the bud evidences
the trees seemed to be silent on the subject.
Various herbs showed lusty beginnings, and the
skunk-cabbage, of course, had pushed up its
tropical richness in defiance of any late frost,
pointing the way to its peculiar red- purple
flowers, long since fertilized and turning toward
maturity.

The search seemed vain, until a glint of
yellow just ahead, too deep to proceed from
the spice-bush I was expecting to find, drew
me to’ the very edge of the water, theremse
see hanging over and reflected in the stream
a mass of golden catkins. Looking closely,
and touching the little. tree, I disenpagedem
cloud of pollen and a score of courageous
bees, evidently much more pleased with the
sweet birch than with the near-by skunk-
cabbage flowers. Sweet birch it was; the stiff
catkins, that had all winter held themselves in
readiness, had just burst into bloom with the
sun’s first warmth, introducing a glint of bright

188

DOMETOPRWER TREES

color into the landscape, and starting the active
double work of the bees, in fertilizing flowers
while gathering honey, that was not to be in-
termitted for a single sunshine hour all through
the season.

A little later, along the great Susquehanna,
I found in full bloom other trees of this same
birch, beloved of boys—and of girls—for its
aromatic bark. Certainly picturesque and bright,
the little trees were a delight to the winter-
wearied eye, the mahogany twigs and the
golden catkins, held at poise over the water,
being full of spring suggestion.

All of the birches—I wish I knew them
better!—<are good to look at, and | think the
bees, the woodpeckers, the humming- birds and
other wood folk must find some of them
good otherwise. At Eagles Mere there was
a@-yellow birch in}the bark of which scores
of holes had been drilled by the woodpeckers
Breetie bees, at. regularly spaced intervals, to
let the forest life drink at will of the sweet
fae) Temember- also ‘that miy -attempt to
photograph a score of bees, two large brown
butterflies and one humming-bird, all in

189

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

attendance upon this birch feast, was a_sur-
prising failure. I «secured a picture of ime
holes in the bark, to be sure, but the rapidly
moving insect and bird life was too quick for
an exposure of even a fraction of a second,
and my negative was lifeless. These same yel-
low birches, picturesque in form, ragged in
light-colored bark, give a brightness all their
own to the deep forest, mostly of trees with
rather somber bark.

A woodsman told me one summer of the
use of old birch bark for starting a fire in
the wet woods, and I have since enjoyed
collecting the bark from fallen trees in the
forest. It strips easily, in large pieces, from
decayed stems, and when thrown on an open
fire, produces. a cheery and beautiful blaze,
as well as much heat; while, if cunningly
handled, by its aid a fire can be kindled even
in a heavy rain.

The great North Woods show us_ won-
derful birches. Paddling through one of the
Spectacle ponds, along the Racquette river, one
early spring day, I came upon a combination
of white pine, red pine, and paper-birch that

190

han oy 9
pie.

PS Tae
Se cee

oo Re MS *

spring

in early

Sweet birch

Yellow birches

SOME OTHER TREES

was simply dazzling in effect. This birch has
bark, as every one knows, of a shining creamy
white. Not only its color, but its tenacity,
resistance to decay, and wonderful divisibility,
make this bark one of the most remarkable of
nature’s fabrics. To the Indian and the trap-
per it has long been as indispensable as is
the palm to the native of the tropics.

There are other good native birches, ‘and
one foreigner—the true white birch—whose
cut-leaved form, a familiar lawn tree of droop
ing habit, is worth watching and liking. The
mame some of the nurserymen have given it,
of “nine-bark,” is significantly accurate, for at
least nine layers may be peeled from the
glossy whiteness of the bark of a mature tree.

I intend to know more of the birches, and
to see how the two kinds of flowers act to
produce the little fruits, which are nuts, though
they hardly look so. And I would urge my
tree-loving friends to plant about their homes
these cheery and most elegantly garbed trees.

The spice-bush, of which I spoke above,
is really a large shrub, and is especially notable
for two things—the way it begins the spring,

95

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

and the way it ends the fall. About my home,
it is the first of wild woods trees to bioom,
except perhaps the silver maple, which

has a way of getting through with its
flowers unnoticed before spring is thought
of. One finds the delicate little
.. bright yellow flowers of the spice-
bush clustered thickly along the
twigs long before the leaves are
ready to brave the chill aici
ter the leaves have fallen in the
autumn, these flowers stand out in
ae % a reincarnation of scarlet and spicy
¢ berries, which masquerade continually
as holly berries when cunningly in-
troduced amid the foliage of the
latter. Between spring and fall the
spice-bush is apparently invisible.
How many of us, perfectly famil-
iar with “the holly berry’s glow”
about Christmas time, have ever seen
a whole tree of holly, set with berries?
Yet the trees, sometimes iityamees
Flowers of the HAZ, Of American holly—and this is
spice-bush very different from the English holly

194

SOME OTHER TREES

in leaf—grow all along the Atlantic sea-board,
from Maine to Florida; and are especially
plenty south of Marylanc and Delaware. There
is one superb specimen in Trenton, New
Jersey’s capital, which is of

the typical form, and when
crowded with scarlet berries
emis can object of" ereat
beauty. One reason’ why
many of us have not seen
holly growing in the wild
iputnat wit. Seems to prefer
the roughest and most inac-
cessible locations. Years ago
Pb ywas told that [I might
see plenty of holly growing
freely in the Pennsylvania
Eaunty “of -my home. » “But,”
my informant added, “you will
fieed: ‘to wear. heavy leather
Beausers: to ‘get. to it!” “The
Murserymen are removing this difficulty by
growing plants of all the hollies— American,
Japanese, English and Himalayan—so that they
may easily be set in the home grounds, with

F95

Leaves and
berries of the
American holly

American holly tree at Trenton, N. J.

SOME OTHER TREES

their handsome evergreen foliage and _ their
berries of red or black.

One spring, the season and my opportunities
combined to provide a most pleasing feast of
color in the tree quest. It was afforded by the
juxtaposition at Conewago of the bloom-time
of the deep pink red-bud, miscalled “Judas
tree,” and the large white dogwood,—both set
against the deep, almost black green of the
American cedar, or juniper. These two small
trees, the red-bud and the dogwood, are of
the class of admirable American natives that
are notable rather for beauty and brightness of
bloom than for tree form or size.

The common dogwood— Cornus florida of
the botany—appears in bloom insidiously, one
might say; for the flowers open very slowly,
aa they ace green; in -color, and easily mis-
taken for leaves, after they have attained con-
siderable size. Gradually the green pales to
purest white, and the four broad petals, with
the peculiar little pucker or notch at the end
of each, swell out from the clustered stamens
to a total diameter of as much as four inches.
With these flowers clustered thickly on the

ei

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

usually flat, straight branches, the effect against
the green or brown of near-by trees is start-
ling. The dogwood’s horizontal branching habit
makes every scrap of its lovely white blooms
effective to the beholder on the ground below,
but far more striking if one may see it from
above, as looking down a hillside.

Though the dogwood blooms before its
leaves are put forth, the foliage sometimes
catches up with the flowers; and this foliage is
itself a pleasure, because of its fineness and
its regular venation, or marking with ribs. In
the fall, when the flowers of purest white have
been succeeded by oblong berries of brightest
scarlet, the foliage remains awhile to contrast
with the brilliance of the fruit. The frosts
soon drop the leaves, and then the berries
stand out in all their attractiveness, offering
food to every passing bird, and thus carrying
out another of nature’s cunning provisions for
the reproduction of the species. Seeds in the
crops of birds travel free and far, and some
fall on good ground!

Is it not sad to know that the brave, bold
dogwood, holding out its spring flag of truce

198 ,

Flowers of the dogwood

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

from arduous weather, and its autumn store of
sustenance for our feathered friends, is in dan-
ger of extinction from the forest because its
hardy, smooth, even- grained white wood has
been found to be especially available in the
“arts”? I feel like begging for the ieee
every dogwood, as too beautiful to be destroyed
for any mere utility.

I have been wondering as to the reason
for the naming of the cornuses as dogwoods,
and find in Bailey’s great Cyclopedia of Hor-
ticulture the definite statement that the name
was attached to an English red-branched spe-
cies because a decoction of the bark was used
to wash mangy dogs! This is but another
illustration of the inadequacy and inappropriate-
ness of “common” names.

There are many good dogwoods—the Cor-
nus family is admirable, both in its American
and its foreign members—but I must not be-
come encyclopedic in these sketches of just a
few tree favorites. I will venture to mention
one shrub dogwood —I never heard its common
name, but it has three botanical names (Cornus
sericea, or caerulea, or Amomum, the latter pre-

200

SOMENMOTHER TREES

ferred) to make up for |
mie? lack. Tt: ewgeht to :
be called the blue -ber-
ried dogwood, by rea-
seu of “its extremely
beautiful fruit, which

formed a singular and
delightful contrast to

the profusion of red
maa scarlet fruits so
much in eviderice, one
September day, in Bos-
ton’s berry- full Frank-
in, Park.

The red =bud,. -as. ‘I
have said, is miscalled
iadas-tree, | the ’ tradi-
tion being that it was
Gnd tree of this’ fam-
oy but not» of the
American branch, hap-
pily and obviously, that
the faithless disciple
hanged himself after

his final interview with

201

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

the priests who had played upon his cupidity.
Indeed, tradition is able to tell even now
marvelous stories to travelers, and not long
ago I was more amused than edified to hear
an eloquent clergyman just returned from
abroad tell how he had been shown the fruits
of the Judas-tree, “in form like beautiful apples,
fair to the eye, but within bitter and disap-
pointing ;” and he moralized just as vigorously
on this fable as if it had been true, as he
thought it. He didn’t particularly relish the
suggestion that the pulpit ought to be fairly
certain of its facts, whether of theology or of
science, in these days; but he succumbed to
the submission of authority for the statement
that the Eastern so-called Judas-tree, Cercis
stliquastrum, bore a small pod, like a bean, and
was not unpleasant, any more than the pod
was attractive.

I mention this only in reprobation of the
unpleasant name that really hurts the estimation
of one of .the most desirable and beautiful of
America’s smaller trees. The American red-
bud is a joy in the spring about dogwood
time, for it is all bloom, and of a most striking

202

SOME OTHER TREES

color. Deep pink, or purplish light red, or
clear bright magenta—all these color names
fit it approximately only. One is conscious of
a warm glow in looking toward the little
trees, with every branch clear down to the
main stem not only outlined but covered with
richest color.

There is among the accompanying illustra-
tions (page 201) a photograph of a small but
characteristic red-bud in bloom, looking at
which reminds me of one of the _ pleasantest
experiences of my outdoor life. With a camer-
istic associate, I was in a favorite haunt, seeing
dogwoods and red-buds and other things of
spring beauty, when a sudden warm thunder
shower overtook us. Somewhat protected in our
carriage—and it would have been more fun if
we had stood out to take the rain as comfor-
tably as did the horse—we saw the wonder of
the reception of a spring shower by the exube-
rant plant life we were there to enjoy. When
the clouds suddenly obscured the sky, and the
first drops began to fall, the soft new umbrellas
of the May-apples, raised to shield the delicate
white flowers hidden under them from the too

203

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

ardent sunshine, reversed the usual method by
closing tightly and smoothly over the blooms,
thus protecting perfectly their pollen hearts, and
offering little resistance to the sharp wind that
brought the rain. At our very feet we could
see the open petals of the spring beauty coil
up into tight little spirals, the young leaves on
the pin-oaks draw in toward the stems from
which they had been expanding. Over the low
fence, the blue phlox, that dainty carpeting of
the May woods, shut its starry flowers, and lay
close to the ground. Quiet as we were, we
could see the birds find sheltered nooks in the
trees about us.

But soon the rain ceased, the clouds passed
away, and the sun shone again, giving us a
rainbow promise on the passing drops. Every-
thing woke up! The birds were first to rejoice,
and a veritable oratorio of praise and joyfulness
sounded about our ears. The leaves quickly
expanded, fresher than ever; the flowers un-
curled and unfolded, the May-apple umbrellas
raised again; and all seemed singing a song
as joyous as that of the birds, though audible
only to the nerves of eye and braim soca

204

SOME OPTHER TREES

human beings who had thus witnessed another
of nature’s interior entertainments.

How much we miss by reason of fear of
a little wetting! Many of the finest pictures
painted by the Master of all art are visible
aly 1m “rain and in mist; and the subtlest
coloring of tree~leaf and tree stem is that
seen only when the dust is all washed away
by the shower that should have no terrors for
those who care for the truths of nature. In
these days of rain-proof clothing, seeing out-
doors in the rain is not even attended by the
slightest discomfort, and I have found my
camera quite able to stand a shower!

Another of the early spring-flowering small
trees—indeed, the earliest one that blooms in
white—is the shad-bush, or service- berry.
Again the “common” names are trifling and
inadequate; shad-bush because the _ flowers
come when the shad are ascending the rivers
along which the trees grow, and service -berry
Because the pleasant fruits-are~of service, per-
haps! June-berry, another name, is better; but
the genus owns the mellifluous name of Amel-
anchier, and the term Canadensis belongs to

205

Z. -
6. :

‘e
ta £

~~

sak
aK

Blooms of the shad-bush

the species with the clouds of little white
flowers shaped like a thin-petaled star. The
shad-bush blooms with the trilliums—but I
may not allow the spring flowers to set me
spinning on another hank!

Searching for early recollections of trees, [
remember, when a boy of six or seven, find-
ing some little green berries or fruits, each
with its long stem, on the pavement under
some great trees in the Capitol Park of my
home town. I could eat these; and thus they
pleased the boy as much as the honey-sweet
flowers that ‘gave rise to them now please the
man. The noble American linden, one of the
really great trees of our forests, bears these
delicate whitish flowers, held in rich clusters

206

SOME OTHER TREES

from a single stem which is attached for part
of its length to a curious long green bract. If
these flowers came naked on the tree, as do
those of the Norway maple, for instance, they
would be easily seen and admired of men, but
being withheld until the splendid heart-shaped
foliage is well out, the blooms miss the casual
eye. But the bees see them; they know the
linden for their own, and great stores of
sweetest honey follow a year when abundant
pasture of these flowers is available.

im kindly tree. 1s this linden, or lime, or
basswood, to give it all its common names.
Kindly as well as stately, but never rugged as
the oak, or of obvious pliant strength as the
hickory. The old tree invites to shade under

a 4 :

Flowers of the American linden

207

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

its limbs crowded with broad leaves; the
young tree is lusty of growth and clean of
bark, a model of rounded beauty and a fine
variant from the overworked maples of our
streets.

Again, the tale of woe! for the great lin-
dens of our forests ‘are nearly all gone, = igo
useful for timber;-too easy to fell; staueeeu
smooth, even wood too adaptable to many
uses! Cut them all; strip the bark for “Das”
or tying material; America is widening; the
sawmills cannot be idle; scientific and decent
forestry, so successful and so usual in Europe,
is yet but a dream for future generations here
in America!

But other lindens, those of Europe espe-
cially, are loved of the landscape architect and
the Germans. “Unter den Linden,” Bemis
famous street, owes its name, fame and shade
to the handsome European species, the white-
lined leaves of which turn up “in the faintest
breeze, to show silvery against the deep green
of their upper surfaces. Very many of these
fine lindens are being planted now in America
by landscape architects, and there are some

208

:

The American linden

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TRE

lindens on Long Island just as prim and trim
as any in Berlin. Indeed, there is a Sorgueae
German “offiziere” waxed-mustache air of supe-
riority about them, anyway!

There is an all-pervading Middle States
tree that I might give a common name to as
the “fence-post tree,” because it 1s SO )joneem
grown for that use only, by reason of its
enduring timber and its exceeding vigor under
hard usage. Yet the common black locust is
one of the most distinct and pleasing American
trees of moderate height. Distinct it is in its
framework in winter, mayhap with the twisted
pods of last season’s fruits hanging free; dis-
tinct again in its long-delayed late-coming
acacia-like foliage; but fragrant, elegant and
beautiful, as well as distinct, when in June it
sets forth its long, drooping racemes of whitest
and sweetest flowers. These come only when
warm weather is an assured fact, and the wise
Pennsylvania Germans feel justified in awaiting
the blooming of the locust before finally dis-
carding their winter underclothing!

For years a family of my knowledge has
held it necessary, for its proper conduct, to

210

Flowers of the black locust

have in order certain floral drives. First the
apple blossom drive introduces the spring, and
the lilac drive confirms the impression that
really the season is advancing; but the locust
drive is the sweetest of all, taking these nature
lovers along some shady lanes, beside the east
Bank of a great river, and in places where,
the trees planted only for the fence utility of
the hard yellow wood, these fragrant flowers,
hanging in grace and elegance far above the
highway, have redeemed surroundings other-
wise sordid and mean.

I want Americans to prize the American
locust for its real beauty. The French know

Zt

Young trees of the black locust

SOME OTHER TREES

it, and show with pride their trifling imported
specimens. We cannot exterminate the trees,
and there will be plenty for posts, too; but
let us realize its sweetness and elegance, as
well as the durability of its structure.

There are fashions in trees, if you please,
and the nurserymen set them. Suddenly they
discover the merits of some long-forgotten tree,
and it jumps into prominence. Thus, only a
few years ago, the pin-oak came into vogue,
to the lasting benefit of some parks, avenues
and home grounds. Then followed the syca-
more, but it had to be the European variety,
for our own native “plane tree,” or “button-
ball,” is too plentiful and easy to sing much of
a tree-seller’s song about. This Oriental plane
is a fine tree, however, and the avenue in
Fairmount Park that one may see from trains
passing over the Schuylkill river is admirable.
The bark is mottled in green, and especially
bright when wet with rain. As the species is
itce from the attacks of -a -nasty. European
“bug,” or fungus, which is bothering the
immerican plane, it is much safer to handle,
commercially.

213

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

But our stately American sycamore is in a
different class. One never thinks of at@agee
lawn tree, or as bordering a fashionable road-
way; rather the expectation is to find it along
a brook, in a meadow, or in some rather wild
and unkempt spot. As one of the scientific
books begins of it, “it is a tree of the "iam
magnitude.” I like that expression; forge
sycamore gives an impression of magnitude
and breadth; it spreads out serenely and
comfortably.

My friend Professor Bailey says Platanus
occidentalis, which is the truly right name of
this tree, has no title to the term, Sycamores
it is. properly, as his Cyclopedia’ giyeqgae
Buttonwood, or Plane. Hunting about a little
among tree books, I find the reason for this,
and that it explains another name I have
never understood. The sycamore of the Bible,
referred to frequently in the Old Testameng
traditionally mentioned as the tree under which
Joseph rested with Mary and the young child
on the way to Egypt, and into which Zaccheus
climbed to see what was going on, was a sort
of fig tree—“Pharaoh’s Fig,” in fact. Wien

214

ball

, or button

The sycamore

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH |THE TREFS

the mystery-plays of the centuries gone by
were produced in Europe, the tree most like
to what these good people thought was the
real sycamore furnished the branches used in
the scene-setting—and it was either the ort-
ental plane, or the sycamore-leaved maple that
was chosen, as convenient. The name soon
attached itself to the trees; and when home-
sick immigrants looked about the new world of
America for some familiar tree, it was easy
enough to see a great similarity in our button-
wood, which thus soon became sycamore.

So much for information, more or less leg-
endary, I confess; but the great tree we are.
discussing is very tangible. Indeed, it is always
in the public eye; for it carries on a \sopmuer
continuous disrobing performance! The snake
sheds his skin rather privately, and comes forth
in his new spring suit all at once; the oak and
the maple, and all the rest of them continually
but invisibly add new bark between the split-
ting or stretching ridges of the old; but our
wholesome friend the sycamore is quite shame-
lessly open about it, dropping off a plate or a
patch here and there as he grows and swells,

216

SOME OTHER TREES

to show us his underwear, which thus at once
becomes overcoat, as he goes on. At first
greenish, the under bark thus exposed be-
comes creamy white, mostly; and I have had a
conceit that the colder the winter, the whiter
would be those portions of Mr. Buttonball’s
pajamas he cated to expose to us the next
spring!

The leaves of the sycamore are good to look
at, and efficient against the sun. The color
above is not as clear and sharp as that of the
-maple; underneath the leaves are whitish, and
soft, or “pubescent,” as the botanical term goes.
Quite rakishly pointed are the tips, and the
whole effect, in connection with the balls,—

which are first crowded clusters of flowers, and
then just as crowded clusters of seeds—is that

Button-balls —
fruit of the sycamore

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

of a gentleman of the old school, dignified in
his knee-breeches and cocked hat, fully aware
that he is of comfortable importance!

Those little button-balls that give name to
this good American tree follow the flower clus-
ters without much change of form—they were
flowers, they are seeds—and they stay by the
tree persistently all winter, blowing about in
the sharp winds. After a while one is banged
often enough to open its structure, and then
the carrying wind takes on its wings the neat
little cone-shaped seeds, each possessed of its
own silky hairs to help fioat it gently toward
the ground—and thus is another of nature’s
curious rounds of distribution completed.

A tree is never without interest to those
whose eyes have been opened to some of the
wonders and perfections of nature. Neverthe-
less, there is a time in the year’s round when
each tree makes its special appeal. It may be
in the winter, when every twig, is outlined
sharply against the cold sky, and the snow
reflects light into the innermost crevices of its
structure, that the elm is most admirable.
When the dogwood has on its white robe in

218

SOV OFitk ‘TREES

May and June, it then sings its song of the
year. The laden apple tree has a pure glory of
the blossoms, and another warmer, riper glory
of the burden of fruit, but we think most kindly
of its flowering time. Some trees maintain such
a continuous show of interest and beauty that
it is difficult to say on any day, “Now is this
tulip or this oak at its very finest!” Again, the
spring redness of the swamp maple is_ hardly
less vivid than its mature coloring of the fall.

But as to the liquidambar, or sweet- gum,
there can be no question. Interesting and ele-
gant the year round, its autumn covering of
polished deep crimson starry leaves is so start-
lingly beautiful and distinct as to almost take
it out of comparison with any- other tree.
Others have nearly the richness of color, others
again show nearly the elegance of leaf form,
but no one tree rivals completely the sweet-
gum at the time when the autumn chill has
driven out all the paleness in its leaf spectrum,
leaving only the warm crimson that seems for
awhile to defy further attacks of frost.

As to shape, the locality settles~that: for, a
very symmetrical small to maximum-sized tree

219

idambar

The liqu

SOME ORHER TREES

in the North and on _ high dry places, in
the South and in wet places north it becomes
another “tree of the first magnitude,” wide-
spreading and heavy. A _ stellar comparison
seems to fit, because of these wonderful
leaves. They struck me at first, hunting pho-
tographs one day, as some sort of a maple;
but what maple could have such perfection
@restar formr A: maple refined, perfected, and
indeed polished, one might well think, for
while other trees have shining leaves, they are
dull in comparison with the deep-textured
gloss of these of the sweet-gum.

imeie. too, 16 La tree. for many places; an
adaptable, cosmopolitan sort of arboreal growth.
At its full strength of hard, solid, time- defying
wooded body on the edge of some almost
inaccessible swamp of the South, where its
spread-out roots and ridgy branches earn for
i sanother common ..name as the “alligator
Mice, .it is, m a park or along a ‘private: drive-
way at the North quite the acme of refined
fee. elegance, all the summer. and fall. | It
takes on a rather narrow, pyramidal head,
broadening as it ages, but never betraying kin

Zim

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREee

with its fellow of the swamp, save perhaps
when winter has bared its peculiar winged and
strangely “corky” branches.

These odd branches bear, on
some trees particularly, a notice-
able ridge, made up of the same
substance which in the cork-
oak of Europe furnishes the
bottle- stoppers of commerce.
It makes the winter
structure of the sweet-
gum most distinct and
picturesque, which ap-
pearance is accentuated
by the interesting little
seed-balls, or fruits,
rounded and spiny, that hang
long from the twigs. These
fruits follow quickly an incon-
The star-shaped leaves Spicuous flower that) nage
sit Ean San te “i a or May has made its brief ap-
summer. pearance, and they add greatly
to the general attractiveness of the tree on
the lawn, to my mind. Years ago I first made
acquaintance with the liquidambar, as it ought

222,

SOME OTHER TREES

always to be called, one wet September day,
when an old tree-lover took me out on his
lawn to see the rain accentuate the polish on
the starry leaves and drip from the little many-
pointed balls. I found that day that a camera
would work quite well under an umbrella, and
I obtained also a mind-negative that will last,
Pepelieve, as long as I can think of trees.
The next experience was in another state,
where a quaint character, visited on _ business,
struck hands with me on tree-love, and took
me’ to see his pet liquidambar at ‘the edge of
a mill-pond. That one was taller, and quite
stately; it made an impression, deepened again
when the third special’showing came, this time
on a college campus, the young tree being
naked and corky, and displayed with pride by
the college professor who had gotten out of
his books into real life for a joyous half day.
He wasn’t the botany professor, if you
please; that dry-as-dust gentleman told me,
men! inquired as to what I might find
Mieecarly bloom, or see with the eyes of an
ignorant plant-lover, that there was “nothing
blooming, and nothing of interest.” He added

223

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

that he had a fine herbarium where I might
see all the plants I wanted, nicely dried and
spread out with pins and pasters, their roots
and all!

Look at dead plants, their roots indecently
exposed to mere curiosity, on a bright, living
early April day? Not much! I told my trou-
ble to the professor of agriculture, whose eyes
brightened, as he informed me he had ie
classes for that morning, and—“ We would see!”
We did see a whole host of living things
outdoors,— flowers peeping out; leaves of the
willows, just breaking; buds ready to burst;
all nature waiting for the sun’s call of the
“orand entrée.” It was a good day ;sismuuee
pitied that poor old dull-eyed herbarium spec-
imen of a botanical professor, in whose veins
the blood was congealing, when everything
about called on him to get out under the rays
of God’s sun, and study, book in hand if he
wanted, the bursting, hurrying facts of the im-
minent spring. .

But a word more about the liquidambar—
the name by which I hope the tree wear
discussing may be talked of and thought of.

224

SOME OTRHER TREES

Ola —linnwus ‘eave vit that name, because it
described euphoniously as well as_ scientifically
the fact that the sap which exudes from this
fine American tree zs liquid amber. Now isn’t
iat better than “gum” tree?

With trees in general as objects of interest,
I have always felt a special leaning toward
tropical trees, probably because they were rare,
end indeed not to be seen outside of the
conservatory in our Middle States. My first
visit to Florida was made particularly enjoyable
by reason of the palms and bananas there to
Pevscen, and J’ haye’ by no means lost the
feeline of admiration for the latter especially.
In Yucatan there were to be seen other and
stranger growths and fruits, and the novelty of
a great cocoanut grove is yet a memory not
eclipsed by the present-day Floridian and
Bahamian productions of the same sort.

It was, therefore, with some astonishment
that I came to know, a few years ago, more
mma little tree bearing a fruit that‘ had been
familiar from my boyhood, but which I was
then informed was the sole northern represen-
Fauve of a great family of tropical fruits, and

225

The papaw in bloom

which was fairly called the American banana.
The papaw it was; a fruit all too luscious and-
sweet, when fully ripe in the fall, for most
tastes, but appealing strongly to the omnivorous
small boy. I suppose most of my readers know
its banana-like fruits, four or five inches long,
green outside, but filled with soft and sweet
aromatic yellow pulp, punctuated by several
fat bean-like seeds.

But it is the very handsome and distinct
little tree, with its decidedly odd flowers, I

226

SOME OTHER TREES

would celebrate, rather than the fruits. This
tree, rather common to shady places in eastern
America as far north as New York, is worth
much attention, and worth planting for its
spreading richness of foliage. The leaves are
large, and seem to carry into the cold North
a hint of warmth and of luxuriant growth not
common, by any means—I know of only
one other hardy tree, the cucumber magnolia,
with an approaching character. The arrange-
ment of these handsome papaw leaves on the
branches, too, makes the complete mass of
regularly shaped greenery that is the special
characteristic of this escape from the tropics;
and, since I have seen the real papaw of the
West Indies in full glory, I am more than
ever glad for the handsomer tree that belongs
to the regions of cold and vigor.

The form of our papaw, or -Asimina triloba

Flowers of the papaw
224

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

—the botanical name is rather pleasing — is
noticeable, and as characteristic as its leafage.
See these side branches, leaving the slender
central stem with a graceful up-curve,’ but
almost at once swinging down, only to again
curve upward at the ends! Are they not
graceful? Such branches as these point nature’s
marvelous engineering, to appreciate which one
needs only to try to imagine a structure of
equal grace and efficiency, made with any ma-
terial of the arts. How awkward and clumsy
steel would be, or other metal!

Along these swinging curved branches, as
we see them in the April winds, there appear
hints of the leaf richness that is to come—but
something else as well. These darkest purple-
red petals, almost black, as they change from
the green of their opening hue, make up the
peculiar flowers of the papaw. There is gold
in the heart of the flower, not hid from the
bees, and there is much of interest for the
seeker for spring knowledge as well; though
I advise him not to smell the flowers. Almost
the exact antithesis of the dogwood is the
bloom of this tree; for, both starting green

228

SOME OTHER TREES

when first unfolded from the buds, the papaw’s
flowers advance through browns and _ yellows,
dully mingled, to the deep vinous red of
maturity. [he dogwood’s final banner of white
is unfolded through its progress of greens,
aeaut the same time or a little later.

A pleasant and peculiar small tree is this
papaw, not nearly so well known or so highly
esteemed as it ought to be.

Another tree with edible fruits—but here
there will be a dispute, perhaps!—is the per-
simmon. I mean the American persimmon,
indissolubly associated in our own Southland
with the darky and the ’possum, but also well
distributed over Eastern North America as far
merth as Connecticut. The botanical name of
the genus is Dhiospyros, liberally translated as
Saenit-of the gods,” or “Jove’s fruit.” If his
highness of Olympus was, by any chance, well
acquainted with our ’simmon just before frost,
he must have had a copper-lined mouth, to
choose it as his peculiar fruit!

iMakineg.2) moderate -sized. tree of ~ peculiar
and pleasing form, its branches twisting regard-
less of symmetry, the persimmon in Pennsyl-

229

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

vania likes the country roadsides, especially
along loamy banks. Here it has unequaled
opportunity for hanging out its attractively
colored fruits. As one drives along in early
fall, just before hard frost, these fine - looking
little tomato-like globes of orange and red
are advertised in the wind by the absence of
the early dropping foliage. They look luscious
and tempting; indeed, they are tempting!
Past experience—you need but one—had
prepared me for this “bunko” fruit; but my
friend would not believe me, one day in early
October—he must taste for himself. Taste he
did, and generously, for the first bite is pleas-
ing, and does not alarm, wherefore he had
time, before his insulted nerves of mouth and
tongue gave full warning, to absorb two of
the ’simmons. Whew! What a face he made
when the puckering juice got to work, and
convinced him that he had _ been sucking
a disguised lump of alum. Choking and
gasping, he called for the water we were far
from; and fe won’t try an unfrosted per-
simmon again!

My clerical friend who brought home the

230

The persimmon tree in fruiting time

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES

fairy tale about the red-bud, or Judas-tree,
might well have based his story on the Ameri-
can persimmon, but for the fact that this puck-
ery little globe, so brilliant and so deceptive
before frost, loses both its beauty and its astrin-
gency when slightly frozen. Then its tender
flesh is suave and delicious, and old Jove might
well choose it for his own.

But the tree—that is a beauty all summer,
with its shining leaves, oblong, pointed and
almost of the magnolia shape. It will grace
any situation, and is particularly one of the
trees worth planting along highways, to relieve
the monotony of too many maples, ashes, horse-
chestnuts and the like, and to offer to the
passer-by a tempting fruit of which he will
surely not partake too freely when it is most
attractive. I read that toward the Western limit
of its range the persimmon, in Louisiana, East-
ern Kansas and the Indian Territory, becomes
another tree of the first magnitude, towering
above a hundred feet. This would be well
worth seeing!

There is another persimmon in the South,
introduced from Japan, the fruits of which are

se)

SOVWE ORHER TREES

sold on the fruit-stands of Philadelphia, Bos-
fon and New York. This, the “kaki” of Japan,
is a small but business-like tree, not substan-
tially hardy north of Georgia, which provides
great quantities of its beautiful fruits, rich in
coloring and sweet to the taste, and varying
greatly in size and form in its different varie-
ties. These ’simmons do not need the touch
of frost, nor do they ever attain the fine, wild,
high flavor of the frost-bitten Virginian fruits;
Bee tree that ‘bears them has none of the
irregular beauty of our native persimmon, nor
goes it approach in size. to that ornament of
the countryside.

And now, in closing these sketches, I be-
come most keenly sensible of their deficiencies.
Purely random bits they are, coming from a
busy man, and possessing the one merit of
frankness. Deeply interested in trees, but lack-
ing the time for continuous study, I have been
turning my camera and my eyes upon the
growths about me, asking questions, mentally
recording what I could see, and, while thankful
for the rest and the pleasure of the pursuit,

=

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TkKEae

always sorry not to go more fully into proper
and scientific tree knowledge. At times my
lack in this respect has made me ashamed to
have written at all upon trees; but with full
gratitude to the botanical explorers whose
labors have made such superficial observations
as mine possible, I venture to send _ forth
these sketches, without pretension as to the
statement of any new facts or features.

If anything I have here set down shall
induce among those who have looked and read
with me from nature’s open book the desire
to go more deeply into the fascinating tree
lore that always awaits and inevitably rewards
the effort, I shall cry heartily, “God=speemm

Berries of the spice-bush

234

Gndex

Illustrations are indicated by a prefixed asterisk (*).

Names, see page 239.

Acorn, beginning of, 27.

Alligator tree, 221.

Amelanchier, 205.

American trees in Europe, 133.

Apple blossoms, 75, 80.

Apple, beauty of fruiting branch,
*or,

Apple, Chinese flowering, go.

Apple, Crab, 80.

Apple trees, fruiting, 93; in blos-
som, *8r.

Apples, 73.

Apples, Ben Davis, Bellefleur, Bald-
win, Early Harvest, Red Astra-
chan, 93; Rhode Island Green-
ing, 76; Winesap, fruit, *75.

Apple orchard in winter, *78.

Apples, Crab, fruit-cluster, *73.

Apples, propagation of, 88.

Arnold Arboretum, 57, 89.

Aspen, American, 121.

Aspen, Large-toothed, 121.

Aspen, Trembling (poplar), x21.

Bailey, Prof. L. H., quoted, 125.

Balm of Gilead, 118.

Beech, American, *title-page, *177,
178.

For botanical

Beech, birth of leaves, 179.

Bill-boards, 179.

Birch-bark for fuel, 190.

Birch, Paper, 190.

Birch, Sweet, 188, *185, *rgr.

Birch, White, 193.

Birch, Yellow, 189, *192.

Butternut, 164.

Buttonball, *215.

Buttonwood, 214.

Cathedral Woods (pines), 68.

Cedar, White, 71.

Cherry, Wild, 176.

Chestnut, American Sweet,
F165,

Chestnut burs, *157.

Chestnut grove in fall, 168.

Chestnut, Sweet, blossoms, *167.

Chinquapin, 169, *170.

Cocoanut, 182.

Common names, 146.

Cones of the pines, 64.

Cornus sericea, 200.

Cottonwood (poplar), 125.

Crab-apple, 80; Floribunda, 92;
Parkman’s, 88; Siberian, 8&9;
Spectabilis, *84.

Crab-apple, Wild, 85.

166,

235

INDEX

Crab-apples, Chinese and Japanese,
88; Ringo, Kaido, Toringo, 93.

Crab, Wilds «83:

Crab, Soulard, 86.

Crab, Wild, fruit, *87.

Cypress, 72.

Diospyros, 229.

Dogwood berries, *187.
Dogwood, Blue-berried, 200.
Dogwood, White, 197, *199.

Elkwood, 20.

Elm and the Tulip, 131.

Elm, American, *ix, 134, *136, 137,
139.

Elm at Capitol] Park, 141.

Elm, English, 142; *143.

Elm lawn, 138.

Elm, Slippery, 142, seed-pods,

Elm, Wahoo or Winged, 144.

Elms, Paul and Virginia, 141.

Fence-post tree (locust), 210.
Fernow, Dr., on pines, 52.
Filbert, 18r.

Fir, Balsam, 7o.

Fir, Nordmann’s, 65.

Firs, 65.

Fruit trees for beauty, 82.

Goat Island, plants on, 113.

Habenaria, Round-leaved, 54.
Hazelnut, 181.

Hemlock, 55.

Hemlock Hill, *56.

Hickory, False Shagbark, 176.
Hickory, Mockernut, 176.
Hickory, Pignut, 176.

131.

Hickory, Shagbark, 171, *173.

Hollies, Japanese, English, Hima-
layan, 195.

Holly, American, 194, *196.

Holly, leaves and berries, *195.

Johnny Appleseed, 87.
Judas-tree, 201.
Judas-tree, Eastern, 202.
June-berry, 205.
Juniper, Common, 71.

Kaki, 233.
Keeler, Miss, quoted, 117.

Linden, American,
*207, *209.
Linden, European, 208.
Liquidambar, 219, *220; fruits, *222.
Liriodendron, 145; candlesticks, 147;
buds opening, 149; flowers of,
*150, 153.
Liriodendrons in Washington, 152.
Locust, Black, 210; flowers, *2rr.
Locust, young trees, *212.

206; flowers,

Maple, Ash-leaved, Box-elder, or
Negundo, 17; flowers, *17; in
bloom, *19.

Maple, Black, 22.

Maple, Japanese, 23.

Maple, Large-leaved, 22.

Maple, Mountain, 21.

Maple, Norway, 8; bloom, *9; sa-
maras, *1.

Maple, Red, Scarlet or Swamp, 6;
young leaves, *7.

Maple, Silver, 4; flowers, *4; sa-
maras, *3.

Maple, Striped, 20, *21.

236

Te i OF Dp, 4

Maple, Sugar, 10; samaras, *

Maple, Sycamore, *13, 15; blos-
soms, *15.

Maples, A Story of Some, r.

Moosewood, 20.

II.

Niagara, plants and trees, 111.
Nut-bearing Trees, 157.

Oak, Chestnut, 42; flowers, *25.
Oak, English, 33, 46; acorns, *47.
Oak, The Growth of the, 25.

Oak, Laurel, 43.

Oak, Live, 45.

Oak, Mossy Cup or Bur, 38.

Oak, Pin, 30; acorns, *27; flowers,
Kat:

Oak, Post, *39, 40.

Oak, Swamp White, 38; flowers,
*41; in early spring, *36; in
winter, *29.

Oak, White, 33.

Oak, Willow, 42.

Oaks, blooming of, 28.

Oaks in Georgia, 44.

Oaks, Red, Black, Scarlet, 46.

Orchard, apple, 77.

Papaw, 225;
bloom, *226.

Paxtang walnut, 160.

Pecan, 176; nuts, *159. -

Persimmons, American, 229.

Persimmon, Japanese, *v, 232.

Persimmon tree in fruit, *231.

Pine, Austrian, 64.

Pine, Jack, 64.

Pine, Long-leaved or Southern, 61;
* forest, *63; young trees, *62.

Pine on Indian River, *53.

flowers, *227; in

Pine, Pitch, 64.

Pine, Red, 59.

Pine, Scrub, 64.

Pine, White, *vii, 59; cone, *5r.

Pines of America, 58.

Pines, The, 49.

Pines, White, avenue of, *67.

Plane, Oriental, 212.

Plane-tree, 213.

Poplar, Aspen, 121.

Poplar, Balsam, or Balm of Gilead,
TES).

Poplar, Carolina, 122; as_ street
tree, *r23;. blooming of; 124;
flowers, *9s5.

Poplar, Cottonwood, 125; in win-

tere a1 a6.
Poplar, Lombardy, 128, *129.
Poplar, White or Silver-leaved, 125.
Poplar, Yellow, 145.
Poplars (and Willows), 95, 118.
Poplars for pulp-making, 128.
Poplars, White, in spring, *119.
Pyrus family, 89.

Rain, flowers in, 203.
Red-bud, 2or; in bloom, *2or.
Red-woods, 72.

Salicylic acid from willows, 99.
Salix, genus (Willows), 117.
Sargent, Prof. Charles S., 92.
Sequoias, 72.

Service-berry, 205.

Shad-bush, 205; flowers, *206.
Skunk-cabbage, 188.

Some Other Trees, 185.
Spice-bush, 193;
berries, 234.
Spruce, Colorado Blue, 65.

flowers, *194;

237

INDEX

Spruce, Norway, 69; cones, *49.
Spruce, White, cones, *71.
Spruces, 65.

Squirrels as nut-eaters, *179.
Strobiles (cones) of spruce, 69.
Sweet-gum, 219.

Sycamore, 214, *215; fruits, *217.

Tree-warden law, 35.

Tropical trees, 225.

Tulip (and Elm), 131, 145.

Tulip flowers, *133; structure of,
148.

Tulip tree in winter, *148.
Walnut, Black, 160; in winter,
*T62.

Walnut, English or Persian, 164.
Walnut, White, 164.
Washington, tree planting in, 32.
Whitewood, 145.

Willow, Basket, 104.

Willow, Black, rro.

Willow family, contrasts of, 98.

Willow, glaucous (pussy), 107.

Willow, Goat, 113.

Willow, Golden, 111.

Willow, Kilmarnock, 113.

Willow, Napoleon’s, 98.

Willow, Pussy, 105; blooms, *97;
in park, *106.

Willow, Weeping, 102; in early
spring, *100; in storm, *103.
Willow, White, 108; blossoms,

*108, 109; clump, *116; tree by
stream, *112.
Willows and Poplars, 95.
Willows, colors of, ror.
Willows, Crack, Yellow, Blue, 107.
Willows of Babylon, 97.
Witch-hazel, 181; flowers, *18r.

238

Wotantcal James

The standard used in determining the botanical names is Bailey’s

“Cyclopedia of American Horticulture.”

COMMON NAME BOTANICAL NAME
Amelanchier ....... . . . Amelanchier Canadensis
Aspen, American .... . . . . Populus tremuloides
Aspen, Large-toothed ... .. . Populus grandidentata
ieecen, samerican ; . . .,. » « - Fagus ferruginea .°.
Birch, Paper Sev ealsis Sol Sekula Papyiiterd \.,s2
BIKGHy OWEEtN A. aoc... 2 ace betulat lenta
Birch, White. .... . 2. :. . . Betula populifolia
Patch MellOwW, a 2-. ...20e0 sean = Betula, lutea
Peta). eee a, ees. aahuglans: cinerea’.
Eesronball t Platanus occidentalis {
Buttonwood . . easy hy) (
Chestnut, American Sweet . . . . Castanea Americana
SMUGMAPING -e -08-. «+, a eee, « Gastanea pumila, 2
PAPRURE Gn cs 51 82) 1X 2:2 og ee, oe SOROS Nuciera J’.
Cottonwood (poplar)... . . . . Populus deltoides. .
Crap-apple, Siberian... .. . . . Pyrus baccata
Crab-apple, Wild .... .. . . Pyrus coronaria
Grabpwsouland@.. 2s 0 2 5 . eytus,coulardi.<.
Dogwood, Blue- Hepiea Jai sb ee OFRUS! SSHIeES
Woowood, White . = 55... . Cornus florida
PimiyeeAmerican ©. 22.0.2. Uilmus) Americana
mim, English: . . ... .-.. .... Ulmus campestris...
Elm, Slippery or Red .... . . Ulmus fulva
Elm, Wahoo or Winged . . . . . Ulmus alata oote
eR ce mips ais’ tc) ence. + COnyius Aimeticana: %.;
Maasai ss o DIES balsamea :
Fir, Nordmann’s. . . . .. . Abies Nordmanniana . .
Habenaria, Round- leavedi oy ee labenaria orbiculatas 7

239

PAGE

205
121
121
178
190
188
193
189
164

“215

214
166
169
182
125
89
85
86
200
197
134
142
142
144
181
70
65
54

BOTANTCAL NAMES

Hazelnut

Hemlock othe ae

Hickory, False Shashark aes

Hickory, Mockernut

Hickory, Pignut . .

Hickory, Shagbark. .

Holly, American .

Judas-tree. . aie

Judas-tree, Eastern. .

June-berry

Juniper, Common

Kaki . ;

Linden, American

Linden, European

Liquidambar

Liriodendron

Locust, Black

Maple,
Negundo

Maple, Black

Maple, Japanese... .

Maple, Large-leaved . .

Maple, Mountain

Maple, Norway

Maple, Red, Scarlet or siSiyrante

Maple, Silver, White or Soft . .
Maple, Striped, of Pennsylvania .

Maple, Sugar

Maple, Sycamore

Oak, Chestnut. .

Oak, English

Oak, Laurel. -

Oak, Live. < 5-6 =
Oak, Mossy Cup or Bus ay
Oak, Pin

Oak, Post. . :

Oak, Swamp White

Oak, White . .

Oak, Willow

Papaw

Ash-leaved, Box- ies or

. Corylus Americana . .
. Tsuga Canadensis
. Hicoria glabra, var.
. Hicoria alba . .
. Hicoria glabra . .
. Hicoria ovata
sw llexmopacaec: :
. Cercis Canadensis
. Cercis Siliquastrum. .
. Amelanchier Botryapium

. . Juniperus communis
. Diospyros Kaki
. Tilia Americana . .
. Tilia tomentosa ne
. Liquidambar styraciflua . .
. Liriodendron Tulipifera. .
. Robinia Pseudacacia

. Acer Negundo . .
. Acer nigrum. .
. Acer palmatum
. Acer macrophyllum. .
. Acer spicatum
. Acer platanoides . .
. Acer rubrum. .
. Acer saccharinum
. Acer Pennsylvanicum . .
. Acer saccharum
. Acer Pseudo-platanus
. Quercus Prinus. .
. Quercus pedunculata
. Quercus laurifolia
. Quercus Virginiana . .
. Quercus-macrocarpas-m tee
. Quercus palustris . .
. Quercus stellata
. Quercus bicolor. .
. . Quercus alba. .
. Quercus Phellos
. Asimina triloba

240

microcarpa .

- 33, 46

n w~

BOTANICAL NAMES

Pecan . Fert a
Persimmon, American
Persimmon, Japanese .
Pine, Austrian

Pine, Long-leaved or Shnciern

Pine, Pitch

Pine, Red. .
Pine, Scrub

Pine, White .
Plane, Oriental
Plane-tree. .
Poplar, Aspen. .

Poplar, Balsam, or Balm af Gilead.

Poplar, Carolina. .
Poplar, Cottonwood
Poplar, Lombardy . .

Poplar, White or Silver- jeaved

Poplar, Yellow

Red-bud

Service-berry

Shad-bush
Skunk-cabbage
Spice-bush see
Spruce, Colorado Blue . .
Spruce, Norway
Sweet-gum

Sycamore . .

Walnut, Black

Walnut, English or Persitin

Walnut, White
Whitewood

Willow, Basket
Willow, Black

Willow, Goat . .
Willow, Golden. . not
Willow, Kilmarnock . .
Willow, Pussy .
Willow, Weeping .
Willow, White
Witch-hazel. .

. Hicoria Pecan . Bae
. Diospyros Virginiana . .
. Diospyros Kaki

. Pinus Laricio, var. Austriaca
. Pinus palustris . .

. Pinus rigida . .

. Pinus resinosa

. Pinus Virginiana. .
. Pinus Strobus

. Platanus orientalis

. Platanus occidentalis
. Populus tremuloides

Populus balsamifera

. Salix nigra .

. Salix Caprea. .

. Salix vitellina :
. Salix Caprea, var. pendula
. Salix discolor

. Salix Babylonica . .

. Salix alba . . is
. Hamamelis Virginiana .

241

w1E2S),

176
229
232
64
61
64
59
64
59
203
218
121
118

. Populus deltoides, var. Caroliniana 122
. Populus deltoides . .

. Populus nigra, var. Italica
. Populus alba. es
. Liriodendron Tulipifera. .
. Cercis Canadensis

. Amelanchier vulgaris

. Amelanchier Canadensis

. Spathyema feetida .

. Benzoin oderiferum. .

. Picea pungens

~ Picea'.excelsa .) . 5

. Liquidambar styraciflua. .
. Platanus occidentalis

. Juglans nigra

. Juglans regia .

clans sctimerears -) 0. -

. Liriodendron Tulipifera. .
. Salix viminalis . .

125

*129

125
145
201
205
205
188
193

65

69
219
214
160
164
164
145
104
110
113
Toler
113
105
102
108
181

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